Monday 18 February 2019

Quintessential wildlife and cake

Whilst I may have been sat staring at a computer monitor or a tablet screen for much of the last fortnight, none of that activity appears to have had anything to do with writing a blogpost. Sometimes one's work/life balance isn't worth the... weight.

A few weekends ago, the Orkney Field Club organised a walk around Birsay at the northwestern tip of the Orkney mainland. This was to be followed by lunch at the Birsay Bay Tearoom. What is not to love about that arrangement? Storm Erik did his utmost to put a very wet and windy spanner in these works, but he hadn't reckoned with the meteorological talents of Eagle-eyed M, who managed to arrange a suitable weather window for a blustery, but dry, amble along the coast of Northside.

Burns were overflowing, fields were flooded, and the breakers coming in from the Atlantic were huge, but sunlight was catching the waves, such that the rocky shore was a kaleidoscope of greens, blues and whites. Dodging these waves, whilst trying to forage or rest, was the job of a flock of about thirty Purple Sandpipers. These Winter visitors from Greenland, Iceland or Scandinavia are well-camouflaged for their rocky environs but, again, the low sunshine was helping to highlight the birds as they moved from rock to rock. A few Goldeneye and Eider ducks were offshore, the occasional Grey Seal inquisitively bobbed its head to the surface to stare at us. More birdlife was pottering about in the flooded fields, with flocks of Curlew and Oystercatcher busy feeding, their long bills probing the soft ground. At one point, a large flock of Starlings flew by, pausing briefly to give the merest hint of a murmuration. Likely, this flock had been foraging through the tangled masses of seaweed thrown up on the shore, and was now returning to a nearby farm to congregate and socialise.

With an eye on the clock, and not wanting to be late for lunch, our group took a shorter route than intended, which turned out to be very fortuitous. As the track we were using reached the cliff edge by a rocky geo, we paused again to watch a pair of Goldeneyes. Scanning the water's surface, I was aware of a shape that was too brown to be a seal, but too mammalian to be drifting seaweed. At this point, adrenaline kicks in, and as the human brain attempts to resolve a pattern into a known shape, it is all too easy to mis-identify a piece of flotsam and make a fool of one's self. With this in mind, I tentatively approached the walk leader and mumbled, "Er... I think there's... er... an Otter out there."

Reassuringly, nine other pairs of eyes also thought this, and we spent several minutes watching the Otter catch prey, swim to the cliff edge, clamber out onto a shelf and eat its lunch. And, once it had swum out of sight, we hightailed it to the Tearoom for soup, sarnies, scones and cake.

Owing to the forecast, I didn't take my camera. Unfortunately, my phone just wasn't up to the job of recording images of the surf or the Otter. Even in the tearoom, I failed to capture a photo of the repast, but that was because I wasn't quick enough!

11 comments:

Mark said...

What a blessing, you very fortunate man. You had your cake and you eat it!

Imperfect and Tense said...

I hadn't thought of it like that but... yes!

Anonymous said...

I'm still to see (definitively) an otter. I'm fairly sure I did see one two years back, surfacing then flowing back into the river, but it's just possible it was the back of a large fish....

Imperfect and Tense said...

I think the trick is to be either very thorough (camp for days in a spot known for Otter activity and don't so much as even blink) or be very lucky and rely on fortuitous happenstance. If time is not a problem, the latter method is much kinder on one's joints. I've never gone searching for Otters in Orkney, but just allowed Fate to determine whether we encounter one or not. Mainly not! But that simply means that the few occasions when we're lucky are really special.

Anonymous said...

That's very much my entire approach to being with the Wild- it's somehow more meaningful if they choose to come and visit, rather than me getting a good view via stalking :o). Last week, the barn owl paid just such a visit- magical - and the week before, the male sparrowhawk came and sat on the garden fence, conversational like. The only real exception to this is when I go looking for Emperors in the summer, but even then the wood usually hides them and shows me something else!

Imperfect and Tense said...

From what I've heard and read, one doesn't really just happen upon Emperors, so that is fair enough. One of these years, I'm going to have to make the effort!

Spadger said...

A lovely weather beaten trip out. The 'is it wildlife/is it flotsam? Instantly reminds me of one of several such incidents. On this occasion when what one thought was a logging cetacean heading toward the 'Billy' turned out to be - a tree! Still not as spectacular as the gas bloated cow once spied from the boat! - legs akimbo in the air. Or the sack of lemons! Flotsam watching was always a good game to play trying to out score each other on ridiculousness during the very many long periods of inactivity. It also helped keep one vaguely focused for when something did appear. All that interspersed with people watching the pst Brits Abroad! Ah still very much miss those trips.

Spadger said...

Err on reflection, I seem to remember I may have been with 'The Admiral' when the 'logging' incident took place.

Imperfect and Tense said...

JD, oh come on, we're gonna need the tree ID'd to species...

Spadger said...

Ah sorry yes, it was errr Deadus floatii

Imperfect and Tense said...

:o)