Another lovely day here (It always sunshines in Orkney) and I was booked in for a trip to Egilsay with the RSPB. I had been spoiled for choice really as the U3A birdie group are also going on a trip today. They are going to Sanday but I thought that I would opt for the Egilsay trip. The bird reserve on Egilsay is supposed to be very good and there are not many trips there. Sanday on the other hand has a very good and active ranger service so I can go for a guided wander round there on some other occassion.
Egilsay is a small island of about 2.5 square miles and is home to 30 people. Egilsay along with Wyre, another small island and Rousay a larger island always seem to be treated as one unit, possibly because they have a separate ferry from Tingwall that serves the three islands whereas all the other northern isles are served from Kirkwall.
Egilsay's main claim to fame is that it is the Island where St Magnus was killed in 1115 AD by Lilolf, the cook of Magnus's cousin Hakon when Hakon's troops refused to do the evil deed. There is of course, a monument on the spot where the murder took place and there is also one of the few remaining round towered viking churches in Scotland.
About 1/3 of Egilsay belongs to the RSPB and is valued for rich meadows which are grazed by a local farmer and its wetlands.
Because of the requirements of the locals the ferry does not go straight from Tingwall to Egilsay. We therefore set off from Tingwall and went to Rousay where a tractor with a trailer full of gravel boarded. Then on to Wyre where the tractor went off. We waited a bit and then the tractor came back and we returned to Rousay. Finally we went from Rousay to Egilsay. It is a pretty, gentle island but although the bird reserve has a good reputation, I think that we must have hit it on a bad day. There was not much in the way of bird life about at all. Plenty of gulls and terns but then there are gulls and terns everywhere anyway.
We did see a peacock which is the first time that I have seen one in Orkney. I am not sure however if this counts as a rare bird sighting.
It was a pleasant day out though which is the main reason that I go on these trips and we did see a few arctic tern nests although I think that calling them nests is over-stating things a bit. They are just eggs laid on the shingle.
On the way back we had time to stop at St Magnus church for a look round and had our butties in the shelter of the churchyard wall.
One of the girls on the trip who comes from Rousay said that although the church belongs to Historic Scotland and has no roof, it is still used occassionally. (They don't believe in wasting anything up here and if they already have a church, albeit without a roof, then why not use it. After all churches are expensive and so you have to keep using them for 1000 years or more to make it worthwhile building them.)
Friday was another lovely day and so of course I spent some time building chicken houses.
The new "all singing- all dancing egg incubator arrived so I transferred some of the eggs from the old incubator into it.(We have been having some problems with the old one.) In theory I should just have to put the eggs into this new one, set the controls and then not even look at it or open it until I take the chicks out 21 days later. We shall see.
Just as a reward for all my efforts on the chicken front, we decided to go to The Sands for an evening meal and a few pints. The perfect end to another good day.
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