September 2022

3rd September – It’s officially autumn now and September is demonstrating the fact with gusto. The month has started with gales and a lot of rain. Despite the poor weather, the Cosmos is holding up well, producing a lot of flowers and feeding bees.

7th September – I just received a link to the newly created Risso’s Dolphin catalogue for the north of Scotland. Created by WDC, these catalogues are dry reading but the scientists seem to like them.

This particular catalogue has a special interest for me as one of the photos used in the identification process was taken at Ness Point. This photograph, probably doesn’t seem very exciting, but Risso’s are identified by the scarring on their dorsal fins, so this pattern is unique.

This is dolphin number 76 and is named Ness, after Ness Point, and the pic has been credited to a well-known local photographer! He is chuffed!

8th September – This is an interesting little video from the BBC about the South Ronaldsay Festival of the Horse. Children dress up in costumes to resemble horses decorated for agricultural shows. These outfits are generally passed down through farming families but the Kirkwall Museum has a nice collection of them.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-62826900

The children have miniature ploughing contests on the festival day, in Orkney this is referred to as “plooin'”.

10th September – A delegation of Shorewatchers from around Scotland descended on Ness Point today. No cetaceans but glorious weather. Yours truly and H, far left, in bush hat and high vis.

They are visiting all the Orkney sites this weekend and, so far, have seen minke whales, porpoise and some dolphins. A reasonable trip so far and they still have two sites to visit.

A beautiful day became a beautiful evening, with the full moon reflected across the water.

11th September – Another nice day and whilst most flags are at half mast, Graemsay didn’t get the email!

13th September – Apropos of nothing, today is the 55th anniversary of the inauguration of the world’s shortest, scheduled, commercial flight route. Flying between two Orkney Islands, Westray & Papa Westray, the Loganair flight covers a distance of only 1.7 miles and it can be completed in under one minute, on a nice day.

16th September – With reports of two humpbacks and one fin whale in Scapa Flow, I had to go up to Ness Point. Didn’t see any whales but was rewarded with a pot of gold.

24th September – Phase 1 of our solar panel installation is complete. The scaffolders have erected a working platform for the panel fitters to get access to the roof next week.

It’s a shame that we didn’t do this earlier, the south facing roof catches a lot of direct sunlight.

They were able to carry out their work to the lilt of the pipes, as a lone piper practiced his art in the adjacent GMB garden.

30th September – Yesterday the panels were delivered and neatly stacked, ready for installation.

Today, this was delivered! Heavy rain with 68mph wind. Not ideal for working on a roof.

Understandably the panel installation has been postponed. However, the internal electrical work is still going ahead. But every cloud has a silver lining, as the ferries have been cancelled, the fitters can’t get off the island to go home for the weekend, so they will try again tomorrow or Sunday.