Under Scythe-like Wings by Ian Grosz

 

 

Under Scythe-Like Wings: Orkney’s Arctic Terns

 

 

Mid-summer in Orkney. It seemed a good idea, a reasonable bet, weather-wise. And despite the northern latitude, the cool, wet month that was June, we – that is, my wife and I – were lucky. We were staying at a working farm and campsite on South Ronaldsay, high on the cliffs above Kirkhouse Point, overlooking the sweeping curve of Newark Bay, a lonely churchyard and old kirk that had survived there intact since 1642. After the first evening of wind and rain that confined us to our less-than-spacious camper, watching our windbreak nervously, the sky cleared and, by morning, we were left only with the wind and the occasional shower sweeping in over the cliffs from a slate-grey sea. We visited the Italian chapel, walked through Kirkwall’s winding streets and shuffled around St. Magnus Cathedral with the other tourists; had a nice lunch in a quirky café. The wind persisted into the evening, through the night and into the next morning, but undeterred we headed out for a walk at Brough Ness along South Ronaldsay’s southern, raggedy edge.

 

Abundant bird-life, the guide said; and as we clambered out of the van at the island’s southern tip, we were greeted by the sight of a hovering kestrel, its head dead-still and locked onto some unfortunate ground target. We watched its silent flight for a while, marvelling at its mastery. Besides the wind, the low, slow threshing of the waves over the rocks, the day itself seemed silent: the deep unnerving silence that makes us think of time echoing through centuries;  so used we have become to the noise of our lives. We followed the road and a coastal path eastward, giving some impressive-looking Highland Coos a wide berth, skirting north a short way before coming back toward the coast and an abandoned watch station.

 

The cry of Arctic terns was beginning to cut through the air from the next stretch of coast up ahead, and looking eastward, we could see a sky criss-crossed with scythe-like wings, drifting and dipping in the wind. We made our way from the station through a series of grassy mounds, which I knew from the guide were the remains of Bronze Age burial cairns, the turf that covered them torn up by the tracks of a quad-bike. A barbed wire fence bordered the shallow cliffs – there to keep the Highland Coos and sheep from wandering too far – tufts of wool and fur were caught on barbs along their length. Repurposed Neolithic standing stones served as occasional fence-posts, their sedimentary layering clearly visible. A skylark ascended suddenly from the scrub, and in its ageless song we felt Orkney’s long-absent presences.

 

Once part of a lakebed 450-million years before, the sedimentary stones now being used as fence-posts had been quarried by the people that lived along this coast 5,000 years ago. Cut back into the cliffs nearby with an entrance facing out to sea, is one of their tombs. Known as The Tomb of the Eagles, the chamber and entrance were constructed using these same sedimentary slabs, quarried from the coast. The tomb itself was first discovered by farmer Ronald Simison whilst digging for flagstones in 1958, but it wasn’t fully excavated until 1976, by archaeologist John Hedges. It was found to hold the bones of not only generations of the Neolithic dead, but also those of a number of white-tailed sea eagles, giving it its evocative modern name. The stones might well have been used by the Neolithic communities that built this tomb to mark out their place in the world, and perhaps later were re-used to mark the Bronze Age burials now found close to the old coastguard station, before being re-purposed again by the farmers that followed, passed down through the centuries from Pict to Viking to the modern-day: time held within time held in stone.

 

The skylark still singing above us, we moved on, walking cautiously toward the rising shrill of the screeching terns. As we approached, the full extent of a colony became apparent, the sky glittering with their silhouettes, wings translucent in the light. They are wonderful creatures: delicate but fierce little birds weighing in at an average of just 100 grams and yet able to cross half the globe twice a year. They ‘winter’ at the edge of the pack-ice during the southern-hemispheric summer, and migrate north again to breed along the northern Atlantic fringe when the southern winter begins to encroach. They chase the sun, weaving and hovering above the waves on the farthest known migration in the animal kingdom, driven by some inner longing we can only imagine. Our presence felt suddenly invasive, unwelcome. The screeching increased, and we found the terns now hovering above our heads: dark, piercing eyes glaring down at us, the flash of razored wings folding in on themselves in a sudden flurry of air and feathers as they dove to drive us off. We stumbled on, wary of our footsteps and continually harried by the terns. Eventually we came across a half-collapsed stone dyke and ducked down behind it, leaving the mass of screaming birds behind and feeling guilty for our intrusion.

 

Abundant bird-life, the guide says: a draw, and it was a thrill to see them; to feel surrounded by that abundance; to feel their wings inches from our heads as we were chased off; but what business did we have, being there? Arctic terns breed only once in the short North Atlantic summer, with a clutch of one to three eggs dependent on a few, capricious things for survival: the sandeels that constitute the adult bird’s staple food; the sea-ice cover in the Southern Ocean; the increasingly unpredictable weather during their long migration; on the few places left where human activity and presence doesn’t interfere with raising their chicks; and here we were, however briefly, inadvertently trampling through a breeding ground. We were lucky to see a sky so full.

 

I can find no published study on the impacts of tourism to Orkney bird populations, but our presence clearly resulted in a stress response from the terns: a deeply ingrained fear of an apex predator. 5,000 years ago, our antecedents walked these shores collecting seabird eggs; maybe tern’s eggs among them. Our presence unlocks some dark species memory, perhaps, held within the bird’s DNA; but who can tell what lies behind the ink-black, sharp opacity of a tern’s eyes? Regardless, they had more rights to Ronaldsay’s southern shore than us, that day.

 

Visitor numbers in Orkney have increased dramatically since it gained UNESCO World Heritage Status in 1999. An awareness and appreciation of our shared histories is a good thing. It puts things into perspective, shows us that we are part of a long and complex story, revealing to us our humanity through artefacts like the Brodgar Boy and the stone dressers we can view at the once buried stone-age village at Skara Brae; but what impact will all this eventually have on Orkney’s wildlife? As the cruise ships keep coming, and climate change continues to reshape our world, will a sky full of Arctic terns become an ever-rarer sight?

 

In the Shetland Isles further north, local kittiwake and puffin colonies are already under severe pressure due to a sharp decline in the sandeel population, caused by overfishing and a rise in sea temperatures; the latter of which is delaying larval sandeel hatch times whilst simultaneously advancing the onset of the planktonic blooms they feed on. The Great Skua population in Shetland almost collapsed completely during the bird-flu epidemic and has returned in perilously low numbers compared with previous years. Orkney and its Arctic terns seem to be doing well overall, but over the long term, with the threats they face, we wondered if this bold little bird might follow the way of other marine populations.

 

Leaving the shelter of the stone dyke, we continued eastward toward the minor road at Banks Head, the cry of the terns still audible above the wind: continuous, shrill, plaintive. We were glad to leave them in peace. We passed the entrance to the visitor centre for Banks Head Chambered Tomb, also dubbed The Tomb of the Otters from evidence of otter activity among the remains of its long-interred Neolithic farmers. Finally, further along the road, we came to the sign pointing the way to the more famous Tomb of the Eagles, complete with its depiction of an eagle soaring above the coastline. Both tombs have been closed to the public since the Covid pandemic, and will remain so indefinitely. At least the coaches from the cruise ships won’t be coming this way, and this short stretch of coast will remain one lesser visited; except, perhaps, for the occasional, misguided would-be birder.

 

***

 

Ian Grosz lives in Aberdeenshire in the northeast of Scotland. He is creator and  host of the Paperboats podcast focussed on Nature and Nature Writing at a time of ecological and climate breakdown. Two previous essays, ‘Sacred Mountain‘ and ‘Luskentyre’, can be found on THE CLEARING. 

 

Hear Ian climb a mountain at the autumn equinox on BBC Scotland via BBC Sounds.

 

The photograph at the head of this essay is ‘Arctic Tern in Flight’ by PJT FOTO. (Link is to email address)

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