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Friday 25 May 2012

It's too hot!!



Not a phrase you hear in Orkney very often!! Yesterday top temperature was 20 degrees C/68F - which for Orkney is HOT!  Mid-summer temps sometimes get up to mid 70s F but considering last week we were feeling the cold in temperatures in the low 50s F you can understand why we are all saying we are too hot!  And the poor nesting birdies must be confused. Wind and rain one week, blazing sunshine the next!

These photos were taken by a friend, J,  on a walk to Markwick and she kindly let me reproduce them here.  These are the cliffs at Marwick Head. Some of you in the UK may have seen these in the recent "Coast" programme on BBC, as there was an episode almost entirely devoted to Orkney including the fateful last journey of the HMS Hampshire with Lord Kitchener on board which was sunk just ofshore.  There is a memorial tower on top of the cliffs called The Kitchener's Memorial

The cliffs are home to guillimots, kittiwakes, fulmars and sometimes puffins. All crammed on rock ledges. The noise (and - er  - smell) is amazing when you lean over the cliffs during the breeding season. Go up there out of season and the cliffs are silent. Spooky.

Top photo - looking at the cliffs of Markwick Head.

Here are the nesting birds! In a good season there may be up to 25,000 actually raising chicks "on the edge"!



And here is the lovely pink thrift that also clings resolutely to the edge of cliffs. I love this plant for it's bravery and tenacity.








8 comments:

  1. We're never satisfied, are we Sian? Certainly a big change from four weeks ago, when we nearly froze.:-) A very interesting post and lovely photos.

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  2. Marvellous view under the sun ! :) i'll defenitively take my binoculars this summer !

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  3. What wonderful photos ...

    Wow ~ those cliffs!

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  4. Goodness, it' funny how relative temperature is. 20c is winter here in the sub-tropics. You would be in hell during our summer!

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  5. Goodness, it' funny how relative temperature is. 20c is winter here in the sub-tropics. You would be in hell during our summer!

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  6. Great pictures. I had to get my bird book out to see what the birds were other than the puffins. My education for today. I would be amazing to see the cliffs covered with the birds. Thanks.

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  7. Here in Nova Scotia we had temperatures yesterday of 25 in some areas under lovely sunny skies -- Today ? breezy, cloudy, and a chilly 15.

    I feel your pain -- only in reverse.

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