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Moving to Orkney, you would have to be very odd indeed not to become interested in Birds. Hen Harrier’s, almost extinct in England, are a regular hunting visitor to our fields, often gliding through the garden only a few yards overhead.
Personally, it has taken a number of years for my interest to develop beyond passive appreciation, but in the summer’s of 2004 and 2005 I signed up for educational bird watching courses organised through the excellent local adult education program and SNH. These courses are run by the ubiquitous Tim Dean, an acknowledged bird authority and author of the soon to be published Book of Orkney Birds.
A large part of the pleasure gained from these field trips is in visiting the OtherOrkney, the wild untouched and natural world that is really only a few yards away from the man made world found here, but usually not seen, or fully appreciated, in normal day to day life.
I have now signed up for the Winter 05/06 course, once monthly 6 hour outings with about 10 others led by Tim. I will post here the monthly reports of these trips, based on Tim’s notes supplied.
Identification of what we saw is entirely down to Tim.
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