Spot the Cormorant

Our evening trip to Noss yesterday was an adventure which we wouldn't have missed for the world. With the boat tucked under the high cliffs at the north of the island, we could see thousands of gannets nesting on the ledges and also several hundred guillemots hunkered like miniature penguins beside them.
We saw puffins, skuas, terns and seals and when a camera was lowered to the seabed in a huge cave, we could marvel at the corals, kelp forests, sea urchins , crabs and a snow of minute organisms floating past the lens.
To cap it all, we had a supper of fish and chips outside in the 'simmer dim' at 11:00 pm.

Today we caught a little boat to the isle of Mousa off the coast of the south mainland, and what an idyllic place it turned out to be.
We tramped right round the island which is a nature reserve and a haven to all kinds of birds and seals. Most beautiful of the birds we saw was a wren family nesting in a wall, but the most memorable impression I'm left with, was the colour of the sea pinks growing in clumps amongst the slabs of grey rocks, covered in patches of grey and chrome yellow lichen. These seapinks, the Shetland name for thrift were everywhere, in vertical cliff faces and some even amongst the grass tussocks under the feet of the sheep and lambs.

The island also boasts a well preserved Pictish broch which I went into, but declined to climb up the internal iron stairway to the open top. I'm not a fan of darkness and heights. Speaking of the latter, I couldn't bear to watch his Lordship stand on the edge of the cliffs to take photographs. I can't go nearer the edge than three feet, for fear of being compelled to throw myself over into the abyss.

Although the day was dry but overcast, a sudden ray of sunlight would momentarily illuminate a patch of the landscape, picking up a croft or a culivated field or cause a sparkle on the sea. A day to remember for a long time.

Back to Lerwick for a welcome G&T and to dine on scallops on a bed of black pudding - perfect.