Sea
brakken by Rock brakken by Loch
Jeremy Voaden and Tim Dodman
Hundland, Papa Westray, Orkney December 2001 / January 2002
Saturday, noon, just before the turn of the year. Just down from Vanglee on the east slope. The children and I are face down on a pallet, which has been customised into a toboggan. Fast, but you do get splinters in the chest. Hurtling downhill on hard frozen ground and powdery slope. Nearing the bottom we all must peel off the moving toboggan (Dad is responsible for holding onto the tow rope) or else we will end up in the Loch of St Tredwell. A pair of Whooper Swans stand firm, watching.
22
miles north of the Orcadian capital, Kirkwall the sea is brakken by the island
of Papa Westray, “Papay”. The sandstone flags of Papay have weathered to
create a fertile soil. This soil, which supported a substantial Neolithic
population, also endowed a Pictish bishopric, attracted Viking farmers and today
a vibrant crofting and farming community. The soil is brakken by water.
This
piece will look a little at the birds and history of the four main areas of
fresh (or high tide salt peppered) water on Papay.
The
Loch of St Tredwell
In winter, the best place to watch the birds here is to tuck yourself down inside the bewildering complex of walls that ramble over the tiny peaked promontory jutting into the loch, south of Hookin. A great place to set up a telescope and enjoy a flask of fresh coffee and a dram. Until recently, the promontory was an island and there are walls on walls on walls. An Iron Age fortification at the bottom, an 8th Century chapel in the middle, mediaeval pilgrimage cells on top. And then birders with tripods!
In 715 AD King Nechtan extended an invitation to the Northumbrian clergy to establish Christianity amongst the Picts. Boniface led the mission north from Lindisfarne. Triduana (Tredwell) was one of “holy virgins” in his entourage. As the mission moved north, Papay provided a fine base to establish the faith in both the Orkney and Shetland archipelagos. Here, Nechtan fell for Triduana and praised the beauty of her eyes. Unwilling to sacrifice her virginity, she plucked out her eyes and sent them to him skewered on a stick. On her death, she was buried here. A chapel was built about her bones and the healing waters of the loch became a place of pilgrimage, in particular for the blind and people with eye problems.
The
Orkneyinga Saga relates how, in 1201, Bishop Jon of Caithness was carried here
to be healed after his torture at the hands of Earl Harald Madadarson in
Scrabster:
“As
the Earl’s troops stormed up the stronghold from the ships, the bishop set out
to give the Earl some kind of welcome, but what actually happened was that Earl
Harald took the bishop captive and had his tongue cut out and a knife driven
into his eyes, blinding him. While he was being tortured, Bishop Jon kept
praying to the holy virgin St Tredwell, and when they set him free he went over
to a hillside where he asked a woman to help him. She could see the blood
streaming from his face. “Quiet, my lord” she said, “I’ll help you
gladly”. The bishop was taken to where St. Tredwell rests, and there he was
restored to health both in speech and sight”.
From
here, over the 2001/2002 new year period, I enjoyed watching Pochard,
Goldeneye, Whooper and
Mute Swans, Teal, Wigeon,
Tufted Duck, Golden Plover,
Lapwing, Curlew, Snipe,
Fieldfare, Redwing and
on two very stormy days, Long-tailed Duck. One
dusk, having sat concealed for over an hour, I stood up and found eight Herons
below me. Around the “Treb Dyke” a Bronze Age administrative earthwork that
divides the island (and the hems of the loch) in two, huge flocks of Greylag
usually containing a handful of Pink-footed Geese
gather. In the north-east corner of the loch, on the thin strip of land between
fresh and salt water, stands a roofless 17th century mill. This is a
good place to watch Rock Doos (Doves),
Stirlin’ (Starling),
Twite, Rock Pipits, Blackbirds,
Robins and provides good cover to approach the
shore and watch waders (lots of Purple Sandpipers)
without spooking them.
The
Backiskaill Loch
Across the spine of Papay, due west from the Loch of St Tredwell is the Backiskaill Loch. It comes and goes, a marshy expanse of reed in mid-summer, a sizeable expanse of grey water in winter. It can be approached from the coast over a boulder and shingle bank or from the road by Jim Rendall’s house and old car graveyard. His Dandelion or Carrot Wine will seriously affect your bird watching abilities and I doubt that even complete submersion in the waters of the Loch of St Tredwell will correct your eyesight for several hours after consumption.
This
is widely regarded as one of the most exciting place for winter and passage
wildfowl on the island. Recent records are of Bittern
and American Wigeon. This visit I enjoyed watching Rock
Doo, Moorhen, Mallard,
Teal, Wigeon, Snipe,
Shalder (Oystercatcher),
Shoveler, Redshank, Lapwing,
Tufted Duck and Herald Deuk
(Red-breasted Merganser).
Jim’s back field also hosts Scotland’s second largest Burnt Mound (the largest is on Fair Isle). I get rather excited about Burnt Mounds whilst my wife shakes her head pitifully! They are Bronze Age horseshoe-shaped accumulations of fire-blackened stones. Food was cooked by creating stone containers, filling them with water and raising the temperature by adding heated stones. I recall in Shetland that an experiment was carried out to recreate the process and it took seven hours to render a leg of mutton palatable!
In
the interest of balance, it should be pointed out that some renegade
archaeologists claim that Burnt Mounds were used to carry out drug-induced
rituals, disease-cleansing sweat lodges and various other activities. I don’t
recall any of these being recreated in Shetland!
The
Lochans of the East of Papay
A
ridge runs from north to south down much of the length of Papay, so water mostly
drains away to the east and west. A good part of the east side is largely
protected from the forces of the sea by the small island, the Holm of Papay, and
it is along this east coast where the largest beaches are found – North Wick
and South Wick. Sand dunes have formed along the coast, resulting in a series of
freshwater depressions just inland. These then are the lochans of the east side
of Papay.
Northernmost
is the Loch of Ness, a shallow
seasonal loch which often dries up briefly in the summer. Along the shoreline
due east of the loch was one of the main kelp-burning areas of Papay. Great mats
of kelp, known as tangles, would be hauled up off the beach and rocks and burned
here in special stone-lined pits. At its south end, the loch drains into a
natural protected pool, formed by a long semi-circular line of skerries. This is
a favourite haul-out for Seals, both Common
and Grey, and a couple of hundred are found here
throughout the year. It may well be the concentration of seals in Orkney and
Shetland which attracts passing Killer Whales to
stay in these waters for part of the summer, and these magnificent beasts can
regularly be found close to the shore between June and August, with three
separate sightings from Papay in 2001. These skerries, known as Weelie’s
Taing, have actually been extended to reach up to the beach, but it is not clear
why. Huge tangled metal spars and sheets from wrecks add atmosphere. One ship
lost here was The Antelope, when
several men perished in rough waters. The combination of salt and freshwater
separated by just a few metres makes this an attractive site for wildfowl. These
include Whooper Swan, Shoveler,
Mallard, Teal, Pochard,
Wigeon, Goldeneye, Herald
Deuk, Shelduck and Eider.
The shoreline here is also the main site for coastal waders in Papay.
Moving
south along North Wick, we come next to the lochans behind the small crofts at Via.
These quiet pools are thick with marsh marigold in spring, and are favourite
sites for Snipe, Teal,
Shoveler, Mallard and Moorhen.
Further south, at Mayback,
similar spring-fed pools are found. It was here where Tommy Mackay, the ‘marsh
man’ lived in his breeze-blocked caravan. Poor Tommy was not happy when his
cat, Jack, leapt in through the brakken window one night with the island’s
only singing Corncrake of that year, which had been
staking out his territory among the iris beds not far away! The Corncrake
was once a common breeding bird on the island, and every year one or two males
are usually calling away. Modern agricultural methods have caused their
widespread decline in Orkney, as well as in much of Britain. However, this
wonderful rasping call can still be heard on Papay on summer nights most years,
usually from the low fields of this eastern part of the isle. These fields are
also favoured by Greylag Geese in winter, which
form large mobile flocks, shifting from here to Tredwell and up to the North
Hill. The last main lochan of the east of Papay before we reach Tredwell is Well
Park. This is a popular site
for gulls, with Black-headed Gull breeding here in
the summer. Common Gull and Snipe
are the main species seen here in winter.
The North Hill supports quite a few small lochans, the largest ones being temporary pools not far from the Mull Head at the very north end. These, and the more accessible Loch of Hyndgreenie in front of the Coastguard Hut - more a puddle than a loch - are popular bathing sites for breeding seabirds. Arctic Terns and a variety of gulls in particular can be found around the pool edges along with waders such as Redshank. However, all these sites are close to skua breeding territories, so there are often aerobatic antics to be seen, as skuas (both Bonxie (Great Skua) and Scooty Aalin (Arctic Skua)) chase terns, gulls and each other birds for food or preying upon. Interestingly, there are also a large number of small circular pools peppering the North Hill. These are the results of an intensive and relentless fall of bombs on Papay focused on the North Hill, which the military authorities deemed as a suitable practice ground for ship-launched bombing! Luckily for the island only one cow was killed by a stray bomb. (I actually met one of the men who was involved in this bombing campaign - in Zambia of all places - who was shocked to learn many years later that people actually lived on the island!). Jack Snipe can sometimes be flushed from the wet moorland, though you virtually have to tread on them first before they take to the air. The Coastguard Hut is a fine place in a gale to watch the North Hill, especially in spring and summer. However, even in winter, it’s worth stopping by to scan for Curlew, Golden Plover and other waders, passing Snow Buntings and Twite. A Merlin hunted here on New Year’s Day 2002.