Moments from Shetland Part Six September/October 2019

Hermaness National Nature Reserve  5th October  Unst

In July, with my wife and daughter, I visited this huge reserve situated right at the northern tip of Unst and therefore Great Britain. It was a glorious day of sunshine as we sat on the highest part of cliffs that fell away to the sea far below and marvelled at the myriad breeding seabirds and especially the Gannets, huge birds with six foor wingspans, using the updraughts of wind to sail past at eye level, just metres from us. It was truly memorable and exhilerating..

Today was different in that I was alone, the only person present in the car park by the Visitor Centre that lies at the start of the mile and a half rising walk that is necessary to reach the cliff tops.

I had deliberately planned to get to Hermaness as soon as it was light so I could bird the gardens that lie below The Visitor Centre, which sadly now seems to be permanently closed. The gardens are hardly deserving of that name as they consist of just two large rectangular squares of rough grass and  a bank of stunted trees and bushes contained within stone walls but that is enough for  birds to hide in. The 'gardens' are small in area and it is forbidden to venture into them which is all to the good as any birds sheltering in there, especially weary migrants, do not get disturbed.

'The Hermaness Visitor Centre Garden'

I stood by a wall and looked over it into the gardens but as usual saw absolutely nothing. As I have said before, the secret in situations such as this on Shetland is to stand and wait, and wait, and wait. Yes it can take quite some time and often the result is far from satisfactory but sometimes it can be productive. You just never know unless you try.

Last night the wind had turned from the north to southeast and this had coincided with a large movement of birds crossing the North Sea, that,  having left Scandinavia with a northerly tail wind consequently now found themselves flying into a headwind. I hoped this would produce a fall of migrants but it seemed, at first, as if my hopes were not to be fulfilled. I carried on watching the garden and eventually a discreet 'tacking' alerted me to the presence of a Lesser Whitethroat which showed itself periodically,  hunting in the long grass by the stone wall on the far side of the garden. Eventually it lapsed into silence and flew into the bushes and I saw no more of it. A few minutes later two Goldcrests flew from the bushes to feed in the grass. They had obviously just made landfall, arriving in from the sea, that lay just metres beyond the garden, and wasted no time in moving through the grass and were gone inland. Soon three more arrived and proceeded to emulate their predecessors, forever restless mites weighing less than eight grammes that, unheralded and without acclamation had just performed one of nature's miracles in crossing the North Sea and still with the strength to zip around in the grass and stunted bushes before they too headed inland. 

Migrant Goldcrests

A high pitched twseeeet alerted me to a Yellow browed Warbler but where was it? I found it in the grass, feeding like the goldcrests and equally frenetic and restless, making occasional sorties onto the wire fence dividing the gardens. 

Yellow browed Warbler

This was visible migration, bringing with it the continuous expectation and thrill of discovery as birds arrived from the sea. More Goldcrests came, arriving in twos and threes, calling a high pitched tsi tsi tsi, two more Yellow browed Warblers followed, all passing rapidly through the garden, their energy and urgency all too apparent. I could but marvel at these tiny beings, the embodiment of featherlight, weighing just a few grammes, that had flown across trackless miles of sea, battling into an unexpected headwind for hours on end and making a successful landfall at Hermaness with not a tree in sight to provide shelter. In past times it was thought Goldrests could not possibly achieve a crossing of the North Sea unaided and rode across on the backs of Woodcocks but here they were, if evidence were needed, arriving in large numbers, entirely independently. I wondered how many perished during the epic sea crossing, for nature has no sentiment. It is survival of the fittest.

Migrants seem to come in waves, and in quieter spells when birds were not arriving I studied a Wren family occupying the garden. Shetland possesses its own sub species of Wren, Troglodytes t. zetlandicus which is larger than wrens found on the British mainland, possessing a longer bill and darker upperparts than the paler, more rufous coloured wrens found on the mainland. Shetland wrens are sooty brown, the barring on the underparts darker and more prominent. Like all wrens they were engaging and curious and ventured close to look at me, their ringing trill of an alarm call chiding me or was it the lighthouse keeper's cat?

I could have remained here for much longer as birds seemed to be moving in from the sea at regular intervals but I also wanted to get to the top of the cliffs to see the Gannets which would now be attending almost fully fledged young and hopefully would be putting on a similar flying spectacular to when I was here earlier in the year

I commenced the long walk to the top.There are now few places in Britain where you can be entirely on your own but at this moment I was, surrounded on all sides by vast rolling contours of barren moorland, now dressed in autumnal browns. A forbidding, empty landscape of wild and  solitary splendour hunkered below rolling, blanket skies of grey cloud and ethereal blue gashes where the clouds were rent by the wind.

Here I felt once more that elusive thrill of being closer than usual to wild nature and far from the benign re-assurances of the pastoral landscapes of middle England where I currently live. This was, despite my years living in the south, a country and landscape I felt familiar with, a coming home to something intangible triggering my spiritual heritage, my ancestral home of memories bequeathed by the generations of Urquharts, who lived and worked on land not dissimilar to this on northern mainland Scotland. 

A Raven's harsh call came from above. It was following my progress up the hillside hoping, I surmised, that I might throw it a scrap of food as maybe other visitors had done or disturb a mammal or bird. Possibly it was just curious about this lone figure, back bending into the wind and invading its domain. A Common Snipe rose in alarm from a boggy patch by the track, a minor shock to my senses as it sped away, to be instantly pursued by the Raven, its black glossed bulk made to look ponderous by the erratic speeding flight of the snipe, its veering course like some uncontrolled rocket firework that has come out of the bottle at the wrong angle. The Raven voiced its displeasure, reprising a wide vocabulary of calls as its mate joined it. They flew off into the vastness of the moor and were swallowed by the sky.  

I walked on, rising ever upwards toward the highest point of Hermaness. It was barren and windy now, wild and wet underfoot from overnight rain but I pressed on and came to the cliff edge at a place called Toolie and gazed upon a vista of rugged beauty and magnificence. Everything is on a magnified scale, the cliffs huge, the sea vast and infinite, the Arctic is to the north and Newfoundland to the west, nothing in between, and the Gannets were countless in number as they flew before me or polka dotted the dark rock of the breeding cliffs with their white bodies.

A flicker of movement caught the corner of my eye but was gone as soon as I noticed it. Another similar movement came but yet again vanished before I could discern what it was. It was repeated a number of times before I finally solved this minor mystery. I suspected it was birds and I was correct. Goldcrests. Countless numbers were arriving on the cliffs, after flying all night across the sea, making a welcome landfall on the wet springy grass, cropped short by the sheep. The minute they arrived the tiny birds started hunting for food, famished by their long sea crossing and needing to refuel but not too tired and still savvy to seek out shelter on the cliff face, a safer place from predators. Migration in action but it was only  to this highest part of the cliffs that they descended from the sky to make landfall.

I moved close to the cliff edge and looked down the hundreds of feet to the base of the cliffs. My head swam with a slight vertigo, the backs of my knees trembled but then steadied. The constant and insistent braying of the Gannets below rose up on the wind as did the sickly sour smell of guano. A seabird colony is just that, an assault on the senses of sound and smell. I watched the Gannets, living out their lives in their alien parallel world, some still guarding their single, fully grown offspring, grey of feather and gawky. Others were displaying in various contorted and improbable poses, extending wings, bowing heads and twisting necks or conducting lethargic, minor disputes with an immediate neighbour. Just going through the motions as their breeding season approached its conclusion.

Gannets with young

Gannets displaying

The Guillemots, Razorbills and Puffins have finished with breeding and gone back to sea and now only the Gannets remain, along with the Fulmars and Ravens.

The Fulmars rode the wind. Airborne acrobats. Crazed exhibitionists, they come close to where I crouch, forever bound to the land. The minute feathers on the leading edges of their wings fuzz and fluster in the strong air currents. They hang in the wind and regard me quizzically from a smudge of black on their pure white head, in its centre a liquid dark eye. I can have no intimation of what they really see but it feels as if they look at me and say 'Can you do this?' 

Then they drop away, losing their curiosity, half folding their wings and sinking in dizzying spirals, falling as fast as a stone, only to extend their wings to collect an updraft of wind and bring them up effortlessly to eye level once more.

They are complete masters of the turbulent air, making constant minor adjustments in the angle of their wings to keep them from disaster. The Ravens too were indulging in flying skills, a clumsier performance due to their bulk but not without grace and supreme control. They came barreling and swooping on the roaring air, soaring over me, their huge shiny black presence  passing along the cliff face to  down with the most delicate and lightest of touch for such a large bird on some precipitous ledge hundreds of feet above the frothing maelstrom below.

Common Ravens

I found a sheltered hollow on the wet grass and watched the rain storms approaching across the sea from the northeast. So localised they often passed out to sea leaving the land and my crouching form untouched, slowly advancing they moved like grey shrouds, turning the sea from blue to grey and back again as they passed on northwestwards and the sky was once more lit by sunshine in the wake of their passing.

I had one final objective to complete before I descended back down the hill. Muckle Flugga Lighthouse, standing in desolate and lonely splendour on a small island of rock just off Unst marks the most northerly point in Britain. It is another 1.7 miles of walking northeast to get to sit opposite the lighthouse and look over the narrow stretch of sea that separates it from the most northerly point on Unst. It was a struggle as the going is tough, with steep slopes and wet boggy ground but I was determined to get there so I could say I was as near as possible to the most northerly point in Britain. 

Muckle Flugga Lighthouse

An hour later I reached my goal and wearily sunk down on the rain wet moor grass. In solitary contemplation I remained here for a long time thinking, random thoughts spilling through my mind. A sentimental Scottish thing. I stood up to make the long return journey. At that moment I was the most northerly human being in Britain and sixty five million souls were south of me. 


Farewell Hermaness - until the next time.


to be continued........................