North Ronaldsay for beginners

When I said about the scenery in Orkney that you are always looking at a pattern of the land beyond the water, or the water beyond the land, uncertain where one island ends and the next begins, I wasn't thinking about North Ronaldsay. This most northerly of the Orkney islands is more isolated, the view a narrow band of green farmland between sky and sea. But from the Bird Observatory, where we stayed, at the very south of the island, the sea is bounded at the horizon by a hazy line of the bright sands and darker mass of Sanday, and the silhouette of its lighthouse - on a clear day, at least. Further round you might see Papay, or the hills of Westray. From the north it is possible to see Fair Isle's south light, but we didn't.

( Words, words, words )

So this is my strongest image of North Ronaldsay. Reading from top to bottom, the blue sky, the wire mesh reinforcing the green and gold of the stone wall, the fulmars' nests tucked in to the base of the wall - no nest to be seen, just the chicks, great balls of grey fluff, looking so soft and hissing so angrily as we walked by. Then the fine white sand of the beach, and behind me the blue sea, and the seals bobbing up to see what's going on.

*ETA: This short film, discovered by D., claims that in the couple of centuries that the sheep have been excluded from the fields, they have "evolved" and "adapted" to eat seaweed, and extract copper from it more efficiently: if so, presumably their extraction of copper from grass which is naturally rich in the stuff is *too* efficient. But evolution within centuries, really?