Bracken

A beautiful sunny day here. I walked in Orphir, from the village down to the little wood by the Gyre, then across The Fidge. A beautiful hen harrier was hunting over the rough ground. I had coffee at the old jetty on Swanbister Bay and counted about 350 golden plover.

Along the shore the The Breck and then the Bu of Orphir and caught the bus at Houton.

Later I visited Kirkwall Museum and an exhibition of pastoral paintings. I bought a tiny print of a farmer with a lamb seen through the snow and a treeful of rooks. When I left the museum the sky was full of hundreds of rooks winging their way to their roost in Berstane Wood.