Fleur : New Year and lots to do

Well it’s been a little while since I last did the blog so I thought it was about time that I had another go! I think it’s safe to say that all though we are out of season and quiet on the guest front there has been lots and lots of things going on around the Obs! Kevin, Alison and the kids have finally moved into their new house which is great news! Although it is not quite finished they managed to spend Christmas Day with their family in there – although it was a close run thing as the new cooker didn’t turn up until the day before Christmas Eve!!

Mark, Pumpkin and I were lucky enough to go home to Cornwall for a month over the Christmas Period. While we enjoy Island life it was fantastic to get away for a while and noticeably warmer in Penzance although Pumpkin was definitely not feeling on festive on Christmas Day when we put her in her Mrs Claus outfit. Mark got to go to KFC, although for those of you driving up or down the M6 our research has shown that if you don’t stop at the Gretna services, there isn’t another one until Preston! It was great to go out with many of our friends and family we hadn’t seen for nearly nine months and to try and sort out some wedding things. The boys got their suits sorted out which was the one of the main things, but they’ll have to lay off the pasties until December.

Pumpkin auditioning for an ITV2 programme!

Mark’s Christmas Dinner courtesy of my brother-it was bigger than Pumpkin!

After a month off it was a little shock to the system to come back to the Island and the Obs. Mainly because the temperature was so much colder! I’m still struggling to get used to it. Having said that in North Ronaldsay terms its actually been quite reasonable since we got back. There have been plenty of rain free days and recently we have even had 3 or 4 days of hardly any wind at all, which as anyone who has visited us will know is very rare.

Some beautiful snow drops have started flowering in little patches at Holland House and daffodils are sprouting at the side of the roads so it gives hope that spring is on the way.

Now as I said there has been a huge ‘to do’ list made for things to be done around the Obs, so it’s just as well that Rael has rejoined us back on the island! He and Mark wasted no time getting started and began by dismantling the old burning pit and relocating it further away from the Obs. As I write this they’re putting together a wooden fence in its place and we will soon have a giant compost heap instead. We have also spent time redecorating all the rooms in the guesthouse so that they are all fresh for the new season – although for some reason we seem to get more paint on ourselves that goes on the walls and we’ve still got the hostel and bar to do!

We were lucky enough to be back on the island for Burns night this year. Now this was our first experience of this night so we were a little unsure of what to expect. It has to be said we were pleasantly surprised. The entire hall had been beautifully decorated and we enjoyed the traditional piping in of the haggis (and we enjoyed eating it even more!), as well as some cultural poetry and music and the usual dancing. Although a bit different from a Penzance Friday night we really enjoyed ourselves – although I may have to do some homework on Burns poetry for next year as some of it was quite hard to understand.

Walls need painting, see you soon..



Mark: Winter on the Island

With the daylight hours rapidly diminishing it’s almost time for Fleur, Pumpkin and I to make our way south to Cornwall for a few weeks of rest, relaxation and err Guinness. We leave on Tuesday and should be back in the middle of January so were not avoiding the whole winter on the Island-and what a winter it’s already been so far! To tidy up a few loose ends, Rick left a couple of weeks ago and he did so in fine style. A venture north on his last day to search the coast for Gulls was aborted as he decided we should in fact be checking  the ditches near Garso for any late locustella’s-using the Landrover!

Excuses offered included-“those 2 Swans (clearly Whoopers) looked interesting” and “The wind blew us in the ditch” even though the wind was in the opposite direction!

Just Kevin, Alison, Fleur and I are left now, so we’ve started to plan new projects for next year and make a start on the winter jobs to spruce up the observatory a bit before the season begins. There’s a long list with plenty to do, although I have still managed to get out and about the Island most days but there’s been no Gyrfalcon or Harlequin yet. I’ve begun replacing the covers on the chairs in the dining room and bar-a good wet weather job as long as you don’t count how many you have left to do! As long as it rains lots in January and February I should be done by the spring. Fleur has given the Kitchen and Rooms a good deep clean, and the paint and varnish has arrived ready for us to start re-decorating the rooms and hostel as soon as we return in the New Year. Alison and I rebuilt a section of the sheep dyke last week and I’ve taken the mist-nets down for the winter and done a little bit off maintenance to the catching boxes of the Heligoland traps. There are many exciting plans and new opportunities in the pipeline for North Ronaldsay Bird Observatory in 2012 so watch this space....

The main other talking points revolve mainly around the weather. The first Snow of the winter arrived on the Island overnight on 3^rd December and settled for about 48 hours. It was strange seeing the Island covered in the white stuff, with it even settling on Nouster beach for a while. Once the winter wonder land vanished it’s been all about the wind, with an evil storm hitting Scotland during the 8^th and 9^th December. It was overnight between the two dates when we suffered the worst, the wind got up to somewhere between 90 and 130mph depending on who you talked too! Damage could be seen all over the Island with plenty of sheds relocating to Sanday, Cattle feeders blown into the sea and the odd Chicken with a headache! At the obs we suffered more damage to the roof with another 3 glass panels blowing off, subsequently replaced with less attractive temporary plywood alternatives. We’ve also lost one of the small sheds, a few slates and rather bizarrely the inside panel and window of the red land-rover door (which has had a difficult week!), but it could have been a lot worse

Fleur and Pumpkin enjoying the snow on North Ronaldsay (well Fleur is anyway!)

You wouldn’t see this on Countryfile-farmers on North Ronaldsay make use of all the available land

Something is clearly wrong here-no crash helmet, that’s it!

So tomorrow is our last day of 2011 on North Ronaldsay (weather depending of course), were all packed, Pumpkins got plenty of Gravy Bones for the long journey to Cornwall so all that’s left to do is to wish all Observatory and Blog followers a Merry Christmas and we’ll see you all for the Happy, bird filled New Year were going to have here on North Ronaldsay in 2012!

Ric: heading south for the winter

Now that the eventful and rarity-filled observatory season has finally petered out to its wintry, blustery end, there is just time left for me to write a valedictory blog post before I depart south to my wintering grounds, exchanging the cold and stormy Orcadian climate for the street-level smog and ambient crack fumes of Greater Manchester. I am glad to say, though, that I will be returning to the clean subarctic air of North Ron early in the spring, and am already looking forward to what promises to be an equally exciting sophomore season at the bird observatory.

My departure does mean that, from this week, I will be handing over the responsibility of updating the observatory’s sightings blog to Mark, who will continue to keep you informed of any interesting bird news until I get back. I will, of course, continue to keep a scrupulous eye out for any grammatical slips and solecisms creeping into his postings, and will endeavour to intervene and hastily eradicate any greengrocers’ apostrophes and dangling participles faster than you can say “Harlequin Duck’s”.*

The never-ending series of gales and hailstorms in the last week have given us an opportunity to tackle the inevitable accumulation of end-of-season paperwork: Mark and I have been busy slogging our way up the mountain of ringing data that needs to be entered into the computer system and finishing off all our rarity descriptions from earlier in the year. It is an unfortunate by-product of successful birding and ringing that it tends to leave you with a backlog of tedious computer work, but at least it gives you something to do indoors on these stormy November days.

The weather has also been keeping us busy with practical maintenance work this week. Horrendously strong winds in the early hours of Saturday morning tore a couple of windows out of the observatory roof and ripped the polytunnel to shreds, leaving us with some improvised emergency repairs to do during the day. Mark and Kevin were quickly out of bed and to clamp the remaining loft windows down with mole grips before more damage could be done, and in the afternoon we managed to block the hole with wooden boards tied down with string. There are already yet more gales looming on the horizon, but we should be able to make our repairs robust enough to last until we can get someone out here to do it properly. The polytunnel covering is clearly beyond repair, and will have to wait until the spring to be replaced.

It is fortunate that we had had the foresight to remove all the potted plants from the already-damaged polytunnel before the latest storms ripped the plastic sheeting off completely.

Our efforts to patch up the gap in the roof seem to be holding up so far, even though the wooden sheets are mainly held in place by pieces of the guy cord that we normally use for the mist nets.

A welcome feature of island life in recent weeks has been the introduction of Saturday afternoon badminton sessions at the community centre. Attendance has not exactly been high so far, and one week we were turned away because the sports hall had been set out with tables and chairs for a book sale and coffee evening, about which we had completely forgotten; but Mark, Gavin and I have been enjoying our weekly dose of sporting activity and I expect them both to keep practising and become expert badminton players by the time I return. They might even be able to beat me.

I have now got just a couple of days left to finish the last few pages of ringing data, pack my bags, try to find one last rare bird, and dig out an ample quantity of Stugeron and ginger biscuits to last me the ferry journey from Kirkwall to Aberdeen – a sea-crossing that I am not particularly looking forward to. The rest of the observatory staff will be staying on the island for most of the winter, repairing any more weather damage, continuing the hitherto unsuccessful attempts to catch Bean Geese and swans at night, and, most importantly, rehearsing their parts and trying on their body-stockings for the spring pantomime.

*An effort that I’m sure will be appreciated in Tense Towers, if nowhere else.

Mark: Autumn Events and migrant Balloons

After a long and bird-filled autumn it’s that moment you’ve all been waiting for-an ‘Obslife’ update! It’s been a whole three months since our last and there’s been a lot happening. Staff members, volunteers and guests have come and gone and the daylight hours are rapidly dwindling away as winter begins to arrive. I’ll concentrate on the last couple of weeks though, beginning with the Harvest home festival at the end of October. A typical North Ronaldsay ‘knees-up’ at the community centre to celebrate the end of the farmers harvest saw 80 odd folk gather for a sit-down meal of roasted mutton, ham, pork, clapshot, (neaps and tatties) with wine of course. This was followed by after-dinner speeches from Islander Ian Scott and Neil Leask-custodian of the Corrigal Farm Museum and Kirbister Farm Museum on Orkney Mainland, and later the traditional dances. About £600 was raised for future Island events from the raffle and an auction was held of an Ian Scott original painting featuring the lighthouse-which Mark (from the Lighthouse) won for a mere £350-a bargain! Highlight for me though was winning an equally fine Ian Scott original of West Beach in the raffle for just a £1 ticket!

A concerning sight a week or so later was that of a Mad Doctor, Giant Spider, Killer Shark, Evil Witch, Grim Reaper, and a Black Cat clambering into a Red Fiesta outside the post-office. I’ve come up with three possible explanations for this 1. I was still drunk from the Harvest Home festival. 2. The post-office was being held up by a well disguised crew of robbers. 3. It was the school kids out trick or treating on Halloween. I guess option 3 is the most likely and so none of the above critters were entered into the bird log.

An extremely frightening pumpkin

A less frightening pumpkin-although that bone could be human?!

Remember, remember the 5^th of November! It was fireworks night up at the lighthouse and something Fleur and I didn’t expect to see up here on North Ronaldsay. A great community night with roaring bonfire, sparklers, burgers, hot-dogs and a beer or two (well earned after our trek from one end of the Island to the other), were followed by the main event-the fireworks. There were plenty of Oooh’s and Aaaah’s as the clear and calm skies were lit up in a multiple colours.

Despite several members of the Island fire-brigade being present-nobody told me my bum was on fire!

As winter is upon us we hope to provide further updates, with the emphasis moving from ornithological related work to maintenance tasks around the Observatory and Indoor work.

Two cruel finds for Ric and I in recent days are pictured below, and a reminder we live on a 'Desert' Island away from civilisation, the luxury's and some of the things we love (or love to hate) from our past lives. Or perhaps we’ve stumbled on a gap in the market on North Ron and will shortly be opening our own Fast Food establishment

These two are likely to have travelled just as far as some of our migrant birds-other fast food venues are available-but not on North Ron! 

Ric: Autumn Begins

It’s been a while hasn’t it? My excuse: the lack of updates is due, in part, to recent staff holidays: I spent a few days on Orkney Mainland trying to ignore birds and being force-fed history and culture by my visiting family who seem to be under the impression that these are alien concepts to me; Mark and Fleur headed home to the balmy latitudes of Cornwall to catch up with family and friends, leaving a certain high-maintenance miniature ‘dog’ in the care of Alex.

I returned to North Ron just late enough to get out of ‘Bag the Bruck’, a mass litter-pick to remove as much rubbish as possible from the island’s coastline, but not quite late enough to get out of the evening dance in celebration of the newly tidied beaches. The enormous quantity of flotsam, jetsam, odd wellies and other miscellaneous junk that had been collected during the day was most impressive; the islanders had done a fantastic job of clearing the place up and deservedly made the most of the free bar (yes, a free bar) in the evening.

For me, and the rest of the ornithological staff, it is time to switch back into full-on birding mode as the busy migration period begins. A good fall of Wrynecks and other migrants on Wednesday jump-started my autumn efforts with dawn to dusk birding, partly in horrendous weather conditions, as Paul and I tried to cover as much of the island as possible. It was a fantastic day though, that showed just how exciting birding here can be when the right conditions occur. Caught slightly short-staffed while a certain nearby island produced an impressive sequence of rarities, it does feel like we have been struggling to keep up with the Joneses during the last few days; but it’s certainly been enjoyable finding all the common and scarce birds that we’ve had and we must be due our next rare any day soon.

Probably not today, though. The gale-force northerly winds and incessant horizontal rain that is literally rattling the windows out of their frames as I write this have made most practical bird-related activities fairly futile and more or less impossible. This morning we resorted to a safari-style Land Rover cruise around the island looking for birds from the comfort of the vehicle, although even this was difficult in the poor visibility. Otherwise, it looks like a day of window fixing, paperwork, tea drinking and football watching – until five o’clock, when Alex and I have decided to expend some energy with a preprandial jog through the raging tempest as far as the lighthouse and back. And, if that is not punishment enough for one day, Mark and I are considering a night of wandering around in the dark catching and ringing waders. If you’re mad enough, you can find things to do on even the most unpleasant days.

Alex: Chilli Bandits

Hi everybody! My name is Alex and this is my first post for the NRBO Life blog. This week there have been three main aspects that have stood out as more prominent than the usual day to day jobs and tasks of cooking, cleaning, looking after guests etc.

The first of such is the much anticipated new Heligoland trap. This large structure has been particuarly interesting to me from a 'non-birding' perspective: upon first inspection, to me the structure resembled an over-large rabbit hutch, however, due to the prevailing and widespread animosity on the island towards these animals for the negative effect they have upon bird populations and plantation growth, I relatively quickly ascertained that these were not in fact hutches, but an enclosure for the ever growing puppies!... I was further saved from embarassment after overhearing that they were in fact bird traps used for ringing purposes and named after the pioneer trap was erected in Heligoland, Germany.

The new trap, with the other two traps and Gretchen Loch in the background.

The second thing that springs to mind is the departure of the first of the puppies. This puppy, already named Harley, was one of my favorites, having distinct brown eyebrows that gave him a constant look of mild suprise. However sad to see one go, It also could be said that it was about time for this to happen: the growth rate of the bunch has not seemed to slow down and these now stocky and increasingly beefy individuals have been creating a somewhat undesirable sight for anyone having the misfortune of seeing, first thing in the morning, the dog house/shoe & wellie porch. Added to this, they have now accomplished the feat of escaping from their outside enclosure and running amok around the driveway and gardens/under landrover wheels!

However, all this havoc has still remained very much endearing, and very much a highlight for many of the guests, including my own mum, sister and father who have been staying up here this week and had to have all of their bags checked thouroughly when one of the puppies had gone tempoarily missing towards the end of their stay here. Needless to say, upon inspection they had not attempted to smuggle a puppy and he did infact turn up somewhere behind a bush.

The final thing that I am going to write about today is the mysterious 'Chilli Bandit'. Chilli Con Carne (a firm favorite among both guests and residents) night was on monday. On this occasion the Chilli Bandit made their first strike - a mysterious and unknown figure happened to hot things up a bit more than usual by slying extra chilli into the dish while nobody was watching, rendering it eye-wateringly hot to anything with a tearduct. Needless to say, all fingers were pointed towards Rick, the obvious choice due to his abnormal tolerance towards the chilli fruit, but the defendant has, however, pleaded not guilty continually and therefore the best we can do is keep our eyes beady for a repeat offence.

Apart from the things mentioned above, everything is all in good order and running smoothly, other than a missing member of the team - sadly, Beth's stay came to and end at the beginning of the week and she has therefore retired from her post as general helper/keeping her brother Rick in check/being top banoffee pie consumer and is a missed member of the team!

Anyway, until next week! Goodbye!

Ric: Another busy week

It’s been a typically busy couple of weeks here at the observatory, with a good spell of pleasant weather giving the green light for the continuation of our multitude of ongoing projects. One more addition to our team arrived in the form of Laura, Alison’s other niece, joining the well-oiled domestic machine of Fleur, Catriona, Beth and Alex in the endless cycle of housekeeping duties and pudding production. The ornithological staff have been kept occupied, and out of the kitchen, by a combination of building another Heligoland trap, chasing around after elusive plovers, manually extracting undesirable vegetation from our prized field of tuberous crops and coordinating the logistical minefield of shuffling all the staff bedrooms around to make extra guest space available.

The new Heligoland trap is progressing rapidly thanks to Mark’s detailed planning and the practice we had building the last one, although it does seem considerably bigger than we had originally envisaged. With most of the uprights already concreted in place, it is a bit late for it to be resized, but the considerable dimensions that the trap has taken on can only result in it being even more effective at catching birds in the autumn.

Kevin has been back on the island for a couple of weeks, and has been hard at work finishing the harrowing and sowing in our crop fields and creating the observatory’s new camping area. He also managed to persuade a visiting microlight pilot to take him for a spin around the island: a fantastic opportunity for some aerial photography, the results of which will be appearing on the NRBO website soon.

Paul has been busy on sheep shearing duty for most of the last week, much to the delight of Beth who got the opportunity to fulfil her questionable ambition of divesting the troublesome ungulates of their fleeces. The famous North Ronaldsay sheep, adept at breaking down walls, leaping over barbed wire fences and tip-toeing over cattle grids, have been particularly mischievous of late, causing no end of frustration as they repeatedly thwart all attempts to keep them out of the fields.

The revamping of the NRBO website, my own little project/obsession at the moment, is coming along slowly as I become inured to the idiosyncrasies of the software and the monitor in the staff office. I’ll shamelessly take this opportunity to plug the site (again), and remind you all to keep checking back as I’ll be adding more pages whenever I get the time to make them.

Both Fleur and Heather celebrated birthdays during the week. A Barbecue on the beer terrace was organised, with a vast spread of food for us all to overindulge on until we could barely move enough to embark upon the towering pile of washing up. Pictionary was the evening entertainment of choice on both occasions, providing all the ‘quick draw fun’ that was claimed on the box, as well as a little bit of controversy over my drawing of ‘radial tyre’, which should definitely have won the game for me, Mark and Alex.

Radial Tyre, Ray-Dial-Tyre: that's close enough, surely! Who ever uses the term 'radial tyre' anyway?

All that remains for this blog post is the obligatory weekly updates on the issues that you all tune in to hear about. The potatoes are fine. Check. The trees are also fine. Check. The puppies are fine (and rapidly becoming a boot-chewing, floor-dirtying nuisance). Check.

Catriona has promised a grammatically flawless write-up for next week, which I look forward to not having to edit for you. For now though, folks, that’s all.