Autumn In Orkney…… Covenanter’s Memorial To The Gloup…..
by Bernie Bell - 09:15 on 12 September 2022
Autumn In Orkney…
Saturday evening, towards the end of a beautiful day, we were talking across the garden fence with our neighbour. He leant against his washing line and disturbed something, which shot past us. For half a second I thought it was a Humming-bird. Then ….I thought.
It landed in a Fuchsia bush in our garden and presented us with a photo opportunity! It was a Convolvulus Hawk Moth – one of the biggest moths I’ve ever seen – a fine beast…..
This pic shows its stripy/pointy abdomen – maybe explains my Humming-bird confusion!
Sometime in the night I was up and roaming to ease the pain in my leg….and…..The Moon….and the bright spark that we think is Venus. A path of golden moonlight across the water. I was singing “Shine on Harvest Moon’ to myself.
Then Sunday morning – a flock of 12 Goldfinches on the Black Knapweed which is going to seed in the meadow.
Early Autumn in Orkney.
Other sightings of moths in and near our garden….
https://theorkneynews.scot/2020/10/14/another-interesting-moth/
https://theorkneynews.scot/2020/06/19/poplar-hawk-moths-getting-fresh
And…their caterpillars….
https://theorkneynews.scot/2020/06/23/interesting-moths-supplemental/
What a place to live. Speaking of which……
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Covenanter’s Memorial To The Gloup
For this walk I strongly advise taking an OS map with you!!!
At the end of the story of this walk… http://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=15870 I said we’d try the new walk, another day. Sunday dawned as another fine Autumn day, a good day to be somewhere ‘up ‘ to look about us, so we decided to head for Deerness again and see what might be occurin’.
Following the direction of the bright blue sign….
We walked along the path which is quite rough and stony – but stones sometimes present us with Nature’s art-work….
…until we reached wider, more level tracks. We followed the track to our left….
….until we saw a gate to our right, with a way-mark arrow…..
On the track, we turned to admire a renovated watermill with the Covenanter’s Memorial in the distance…
We then followed this track, looking across the sea to numerous Orkney Islands – no pic. – my camera couldn’t cope with the panoramic vista!
We reached a gate, through which we passed and took the path straight ahead through the heather. We could have turned left onto a grassy, slightly clearer path, but that would have taken us to the coastal path instead of crossing the Nature Reserve to Lang Geo which was our plan. We trekked through the heather until we came to a point on the coast where we could have turned left to go round Mull Head but, saving that walk for another day, we turned right at Lang Geo…..
Looking back along the cliffs….
And forward to the Brough of Deerness…..
We passed The Gloup, ate our sandwiches at the picnic bench behind the Visitor Centre then followed this sign by the car park….
Coming to a Y junction, we took the right hand arm of the Y and followed the tracks until we found ourselves back on the way we came, heading to the car park by the Covenanter’s Memorial.
A longer walk than we thought it would be, and rough in places, but a wonderful day to be up high looking about us and planning another walk when we will tun left onto the path round Mull Head.
Years ago we walked the whole circuit from the car park by The Gloup, round Mull Head and back – can’t manage that now but, with a bit of thought and planning, can do it in sections. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
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Here’s one I made earlier…. https://theorkneynews.scot/2018/05/17/a-bit-of-a-rant-about-the-use-misuse-of-words/
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