On Wednesday past we had the vernal equinox, the first day of astronomical Spring, the point at which days here rapidly become longer than nights. For Orkney, by June, it won’t really go dark. The time of the simmer dim, where, for the few hours between sunset and sunrise, the sun will track just below the horizon.
Wednesday dawned dry and bright, a fleece and tee shirt day. In the garden Jacqui made a start on a new border, as is typical for here, every spit that is turned over unearths stone and junk. The stone at least will come in handy, infill for a yet to be started dry-stone dyke. I cleared a tree at a house along the way, a lodgepole pine flattened by a gale. Despite a sharp chain, the saw struggled with the trunk, the timber, full of rising sap, swelling and tightening on the bar as the cuts were made.
The weather turned on Thursday, sun and showers and winds from the east. A few wildflowers went into the meadow, a couple of dozen water avens for a wet spot close to the shore along with ox-eye daisies sown in trays in late summer. Friday brought gales and cancelled ferries. A brief pause this morning and then more of the same. A day to be indoors looking out.
The charm of Goldfinches mentioned last week are now being noticed by their absence. A few are still here but the flock has moved on. Hooded crows are checking out nest sites, a pair have been hanging around the edge of the garden, a tall sitka spruce is looking like a promising spot. On Tuesday a waxwing arrived in the garden, still here today, feasting on half apples, a few feet from the kitchen window.
The first day of Spring saw three whooper swans on the bay, They dropped in at first light, way out on the water, three dark silhouettes on a silver sea. Icelandic birds pausing awhile before leaving to steadily beat their way home to summer breeding grounds. From Orkney, none stop, a flight of around five hundred miles, half that if they pause for a pit stop on the Faroe islands.
A garden in Orkney 
So envious of the waxwings, never seen them. My birding group spent a fruitless hour trawling round a housing estate where they had massive clumps of mistletoe and the waxwings had been seen, alledgedly! Of course, nowt!
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Hello Margot, they are hit and miss up here as well, some years we see a dozen or two, some years none. Very lucky last year to have a flock of around 20 birds arrive in Autumn and stay for a few weeks before moving on. Birds can be so localised, a friend who lives a couple of hundred yards away has Moorhens and Water Rails in his garden, despite two new ponds and lots of suitable habitat have we seen either? No.
The Peregrines you mention, a favourite bird, there’s a nest site not too far from here. Would love to see them passing food to each other.
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The cliffs at Portland are wild and inaccessible, perfect for them. Portland is a strange and magical place, but would hate to live there, you feel you are at the end of the world, crazy in the built up South!
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