We had a late start (just for a change) but we finally got down to Kirkwall for the vintage rally.
Kirkwall was littered with trailers and horseboxes as it was "The riding of the marches" but we ignored that and proceeded to the Mart for the rally.
Pam for some reason decided to stay in the car and read her E-Book while Peter and I went round the rally. There is no understanding the priorities of women.
For those who do not know Peter, this is him at the tractors in the sunglasses (Vital Orkney equipment).
There was a really good turnout turnout of tractors, cars and motor cycles but not so many stationary engines and only two small mobile engines (not proper traction engines).
There was a very nice tourist liner in the dock at Hatston which made a good background for the show. Most of the tourist liners are multideck ugly floating gin palaces but this one was nicely proportioned.
There were several little grey fergies and they were almost all in very good condition, the only one that was a bit tatty was one that I think was under reconstruction.
For the population of the islands it was a really good attendance, especially the day after the county show.
Most importantly, I managed to see the man who has the N gauge model railway at the indoor part of the show and got an invite to go round any time to look at his layout and pick his brains. He only lives at the other end of the barrier on South Ronaldsay and I gave his wife a lift back from one of the bird walks last week. At least that was the most important task of the day completed although I am not sure that Pam would agree.
After the vintage display we went up to Burgar Hill to look at the wind turbines as Peter is into renewables and they are good sized turbines (That is our people carrier at the bottom of the turbine). While we were there I nipped into the RSPB hide next to the turbines and there were three Red throated Divers on the little lochan as well as some other general odds and sods. Please try to contain your excitement.
From Burgar Hill we went to Birsay tea rooms for a cuppa then had a look round the Earls Palace. While we were up that end of the island Pam said that we may as well go up to the Brough of Birsay to show Peter. I did not want to go but it was fortunate that we did.
We just arrived at the car park and got out for a look over to the Brough when I saw a fin in the water offshore. It turned out to be a huge basking shark.
It is difficult to tell how big it was but it must have been getting close to 30 foot long. We occassionally got a glimpse of the head and both the fins out of the water but I only managed to get a photo of the 2 fins and at a very great distance so excuse the photo.
This was the first Basking Shark that Pam had seen so she was very pleased and Peter was over the moon. We watched the shark cruising around for a long time then left to go home.
Just to show how hard it is to satisfy some people, Peter decided that seeing the Hen Harriers yesterday and the Basking Shark today was just not good enough and complained that he had not seen a Short Eared Owl.
The animals round here are an obliging lot of creatures and sure enough just as we were getting near home there was a Short Eared Owl sitting patiently on a fencepost by the side of the road at the bottom of the hill waiting for us to drive up so that Peter could see it. We stopped to see it and it then flew slowly away over the fields giving us a beautiful view.
Home for a cup of tea then took the dog into the fields with Peter and a Harrier flew over our field and started quartering across the road.
Hopefully Peter had a good day, a close up view of a very large wind turbine, a Hen Harrier, a Short Eared Owl, some Red Throated Divers and a basking shark all in one day. We do try our best but that is good for one day even in Orkney.
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