July days start to merge into each other. Unlike the transitory appearances of the migration periods, most things are around for days or week or months. The seabirds are still sitting on the cliffs, the flowers keep blooming, even the lost vagrant birds settle down and hang around, losing their urge to go somewhere else and settling for where they have ended up. Watching wildlife in Shetland, though, means there is always the chance of something outrageous turning up – and it did. An Arctic vagrant was only the third ever seen in Shetland and an invertebrate was found for the first time in 47 years.
There seemed to be a theme to the summer as well: the colour white. The Bonaparte’s Gull, which is largely white, which I had feared missing out on when it first turned up in late June, hung around at Norwick all month. It was joined by the leucistic Great Northern Diver, which was also hung around Skaw and Norwick for the summer. We would have called it albino years ago, but it has some pigment, so it is classified as leucistic these days. There is also a King Eider summering in Baltasound, but that’s not white, especially at this time of year.
On Hermaness, I was getting white dots in front of my eyes as I tried to count the Gannet colony, a task that began last month. Fortunately, they don’t go anywhere and they can be counted throughout June and July. I am counting them from photographs, which meant loading photos in Photoshop and marking them off with coloured dots. The colony has increased – there is no doubt about that – but the exact figure remains to be revealed, as I still want to re-check some sites. Hermaness has always been a notoriously difficult site to count, because non-breeding birds do not isolate themselves in discrete ‘club’ sites, but are spread right through the colony. The count unit is therefore the nest, which sounds simple enough. Except deciding what constitutes a nest isn’t that easy and some chicks will appear in places which have no obvious nest material. Already, we have discovered that one breeding area from the last survey in 2014 is only occupied by non-breeders this year (and so must have been in 2014 as well), while a quick check of an area I thought was a club site revealed almost 50 chicks just the other day!
Even our one day off the island, on 14th July, was dominated by Gannets. The car required a long time in the garage for repairs before its MoT, so I checked to see if there was room on Shetland Seabird Tours trips around Noss with our friend Phil Harris. We spent a little while in the Lerwick flower park beforehand, where I saw my first Shetland Eumerus funeralis (a hoverfly) and some Microchrysa polita (a soldierfly).
I have only been out to the Noss cliffs on the sea maybe two or maybe three times before. I definitely went round once in the Zodiac when I was Hermaness warden during 1988-90 and was posted to Noss for a few days; I may have even done that more than once. We also went round the island with my parent in Jonathan Wills boat in the mid-1990s, when he was just starting. We did go past on the Northlink ferry last summer – but it was foggy!
On our way out we also went through the Giant’s Leg and went into the outer part of the Orkneyman’s Cave at the Bard at the south end of Bressay. There were some Kittiwake nests at the cave entrance as well, possibly, especially since encountering them on my pelagic journeys on cruise ships, my favourite seabird.
The Noss cliffs are also very photogenic when it comes to photographing birds on the ledges. I am a convinced Hermanessophile. I would vote for Hermaness every year in the annual best NNR in Shetland competition – if there was one (there are also only two NNRs by the way), but I have to admit that you can get some very nice photos of the Noss seabird colonies.
One of the highlights of the Noss tours is the ‘feeding frenzy’ when fish are put off the boat and the Gannets (and Great Skuas) arrive for a feed. An awesome sight watching the Gannets dive in the water close enough to splash you, and it was calm enough to watch them underwater. Real nose to beak encounters.
We returned via Noss Sound and the north end of Bressay. The only disappointment was that the only cetaceans we saw were four Porpoises.
I have been trying to get into my invertebrates more this summer, especially since Keith Lugg arrived, but the Gannets and Whimbrels and whatever have taken up my time. Keith came across on 18th July and he did do some bird-twitching first as we went to see the Bonaparte’s Gull at Norwick and met Dave Cooper. I introduced Keith and pointed out that he was not so interested in two-legged individuals so much any more. Yes, Keith replied, six legs good, eight legs better, more than that, better still.
We were on a mission to find a multi-legged beast. I vaguely remembered being told there was a centipede that had only ever been recorded from Unst, and I finally got round to asking Keith where it had been found. He sent me a link to the original newsletter in which it was published along with the plea: “Don’t go without me!”. No fear of that, as my centipede-finding skills still need a little refinement. I would probably recognise a Lithobius these days, but I hadn’t even heard of one a few months ago.
Interestingly, the only specimen of this centipede, found in 1974, had been found on the only limestone outcrop in Unst, beside the Loch of Cliff. We checked a few places on the way up to the site, without seeing anything out of the ordinary, then we came to drystane dyke clearly made from sedimentary limestone. We lifted the first partially embedded rock we found and a beetle scuttled down a crack. While Keith tried to dig it out out with a widger (a small gardening tool), a pale (almost white, in the theme of the month) centipede appeared. “Pot, pot!” shouted Keith excitedly (his own description of the events). Could it be we had found it under our first stone?
We tried a few more stones and then wandered to the northern end of the limestone outcrop, where I found Maidenhair Spleenwort and Hieracium sparsifolium, both at the only site I know of on Unst. There were few stones to overturn, however, so on our way back we stopped beside the dyke again. The last stone we turned over revealed a larger yellow centipede (not quite conforming with the theme of the month) which was also excitedly potted.
Confirmation of the specific identification requires microscopic examination, so Keith was ‘hopeful but not excited’ as he left to return home, but both specimens proved to be what Keith described as the ‘semi-mythical unicorn centipede’: a juvenile and an adult of Geophilus proximus.
Now, we have more questions though. This is the commonest centipede in Scandinavia and is also found in Iceland. Is it really only found in one location in Shetland and Britain? Is it really associated with limestone or is that just co-incidence? Was it just that the soil was exactly the right density, allowing what I would assume to be a largely subterranean centipede (judging by its pigmentation) to make its way though the soil?
Incidentally, it is one of the centipedes with almost 100 legs, but there are none with exactly hundred. Apparently, centipedes always have an odd number of pairs of legs. G. proximus has 49, so it has 98 legs.
On 20th July I was coming off Hermaness when my phone unexpectedly rang. Unexpectedly, because I had forgotten to charge it and thought that it was already out of power. “It’s alright,” I told Margaret, “I’m almost at the car park.” I thought she was wondering where I was. “Have you seen the message?” she asked. “Possible Beluga at Norwick.” Possible, I thought, how can you have a possible Beluga (more on that later). And anyway, a Beluga!? Surely not. Belugas, by the way are white, so maybe I should have realised that this is the summer of white beasts.
When I got to the car I thought I’d better go and check it out. On my way I stopped to check a message: “it is a Beluga. Video on Facebook.” It is a Beluga!? What!?
There was no sign of anyone at Norwick beach so I head along the Skaw road and stopped at the top of the Fluggie, with a good view of the bay. No sign. My phone was still hardly charged. The screen was dull. I’d lost my glasses. I could hardly read anything. I messaged Dave Cooper, who I know knew had put out the ‘possible’ message. “Can you see it?” I could barely see his reply on my screen. I could see the word yes. I found a pair of glasses. It was almost at the end of Lamba Ness.
The Lamba Ness road is designed for rallying not Formula One. I headed down there as quickly as I could. I was going to park by the pool (grandly, it’s named Loch of Lambaness on the OS maps) but I could see some cars parked at the end of the rough track. I took my car as far as I could and abandoned it. There were two people with optical gear at the tip of Lamba Ness, pointing out to sea. I headed towards them, but I couldn’t see anything. then I got close enough to see that there was something there. Something white and underwater. Oh! It is a Beluga. It surfaced again. I lifted the camera and fired off some shots. then I checked the settings. Aargh, underexposed by almost two stops because I had been photographing Gannets on the cliffs.
And then it disappeared. This was its dive pattern. It would surface up to five or six times in fairly quick succession and then stay underwater for a good ten minutes or more. By now, I’d worked out that the people were Kris Wilson and his wife Fiona. After a while, Kris picked it up again, but it only surfaced twice and I was looking in the wrong place. A little while later he picked it up again. I still couldn’t see it. then I realised I was looking too far, and saw this strange white shape break the surface. It stayed in this area for the best part of an hour, but only had three more all-too-brief spells of surfacing to breathe, and by now it was a good distance away. This was the only time I saw the head breaking the surface though and the whole experience was rather bizarre. With no dorsal fin, it just didn’t look like a whale, and all sorts of other things went through my mind – Polar Bear?, albino seal? I can see now why Dave only called it possible when he first saw it (from his house, while on the phone to his Dad – “got to go now, I think I’ve just seen a Beluga!”) It was also so white that you could follow it underwater during its shallow dives between breaths. Eventually, it rounded the Holm of Skaw and headed, slowly, northwards, back in the vague direction from which it had come.
There was, of course, a famous Beluga in the Thames not so long ago, but they very rarely wander to Britain, and this was just the third Shetland record, the other two (or the same one?) in successive years in the 1990s.
In other news, the summer has continued to be exceptionally dry. I can’t remember when we last had rain. There has been nothing more than heavy drizzle for weeks. Hermaness has been dry in several summers recently, so that I have commented that you could walk round in trainers and not get wet feet. But it’s drier than that. The Cotton-grass is having a good summer, but not as good as last year, as though it hasn’t got the energy left to flower so prolifically two years in a row. The month started quite sunny as well, but we know seem stuck in a pattern of overcast cloudy weather.
On the Keen of Hamar it has been a good summer for the Heath Fragrant-orchids, with some even appearing on the Lower Keen, where there were a few unusually pale flowers.
And then, finally, I get to the end of the account of the last few weeks and casually mention that we saw some Killer Whales. They were quite distant, passing through mid-channel in Bluemull Sound on 10th July, and we picked then up again last from the Westing, but they were following the Yell shore. But, hey, things can’t be bad when Killer Whales appear as almost a postscript!
When I Grow Up I Will Go There 