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Walking Group One 25th April 2024
Five hardy souls collected today at Happy Valley for the first Hill Walk of the year .The temperature was cool with a North Easterly wind blowing and a hint of rain on arrival.
Off we set heading towards Russadale Quarry, spotting a Buzzard on the way.Turning into the footpath we remained sheltered from the wind all the way to the top of the hill.
The sun was out at the Quarry and a Greenshank was feeding at the edge of the Lochan. Then it was up the Peat road to the summit with spectacular views across Stenness and Harray Lochs, plus a view of the Closed Road beyond the Watch Stone. On the other side we looked over the Flow and down towards the Oil Platform and South Ronaldsay
Then it was back down after a stop for a snack and finally a walk around Happy Valley itself. The Daffodils planted by James and others were looking lovely and the Bluebells are days away from opening. Then it was on to a well deserved lunch at the Pier Cafe, having walked 4 miles and gone up 800 feet (and down again )
The next walk will be on Friday 24th May and hopefully more hills and views.
Keep moving.
U3A Birdie Group - July 2018
by Margaret Rinder - 19:21 on 18 July 2018
Nine folk met at the 4th barrier in good weather. We watched little terns fishing on the Scapa Flow side, with a raft of eider, including males in eclipse plumage, in the distance. On the beach, 2 fulmar were sitting tight on the grassy cliff. Along the beach 42 little terns were gathered together - a wonderful sight, with still some in the air. These later took flight, some landing on other sandbanks. Quite a proportion of these were chicks, but none of us confident to say how many. Ringed plover, including young were running around.
We also saw pied wagtail, oystercatchers - one with a damaged leg, arctic tern and meadow pippits in the dunes. A camper showed us photos of eggs - saying that "2 nests were seen by the roped area, one with 2 eggs and one with 1 egg". We couldn't spot these.
At Honeysgeo we watched sand martins flying in and out of their nest holes. Below Limbo - a previous site for breeding Arctic and little terns - nothing was there, except 2 arctic terns in the distance, disturbed by a dog. Around Honeysgeo farm were swallows and house martins. Flowering oysterplant was an attraction on this beach.
A walk past "The Head" revealed a few more fulmars - one chick seen, shag, eider and, in a nearby field and flying, approximately 100 lapwing.
Gulls seen included black headed, common and herring gulls.
There was also a common seal with her pup at Honeysgeo.
(Tim, Liz and Sally drove down to Banks, South Ronaldsay to check out the cargo ship aground on the Pentland Skerries which we had spotted from above the wreck of the 'Irene'. While there it seemed a shame not to stop for some lunch! The ship remained stuck fast when we left as they were still waiting for the full tide to pull her off).
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