June 27 Noss in the fog!

Scotland has a coastline of over 16,000 km including offshore islands. We visited a few including the Island of Noss in the Shetlands - the island s now unihabited except gor the birds. There we spent a wonderful few hours out on the sea in a zodiac with 8 other people cutting through quite sizeable waves and swells cloaked in a fine blanket of fog. Sheer cliffs towering above us were nesting and resting places for thousands of Northern Gannets, guillemots, Atlantic Puffins, fulmar, Black-backed Gulls, cormorants and shags. And where there are birds and chicks and eggs and any promise of a feed, there are Great Skuas. They are quite magnificent birds but are very aggressive. Like Frigatebirds, they hassle the birds in the air to drop their fish. But they also attack and kill birds of all sizes. A constant chattering followed us as we slowly made our way along the cliff face towards the Noup of Noss. The name tickles my fancy!  We nosed into a narrow gap in the cliff to explore and found calm crystal-clear water with waving kelp fanning the rocks and surface. Anemones, starfish and large jellyfish flourished in the gentle lapping of this quiet hidey-hole.    

The Noop of Noss is a high rocky headland dropping over 180 metres vertically into the roiling sea on which we were bobbing up and down. Balanced on our quite bouncy perches on the edge of our black rubber-duckies, we craned our necks this way and that watching huge flocks of birds constantly circling above us in the fog. It was truly magical - but I seem to have a permanently stiff neck!

Many of the birds were as curious of us as we were of them and flew in for a closer look. One passenger received many ‘bird blessings’ and we reckoned it was his hat - it looked a bit like a target. 

That day on both morning and afternoon excursions, our zodiac skippers had to use handheld GPS devices to find our way back to the mothership. ‘Interesting’ experience driving through fog on a vast sea of heaving waves to finally and thankfully see the ship slowly emerge out of the dense blanket of invisibility. We all collectively let our out breath!

Noup of Noss was just around that headland which was cut off from the rest of the island by a cliff collapse.

These are Common Guillemots. One of my favourites - actually most of them are my favourites!

Jim's hat looked a bit like a target - he copped a lot of bird blessings. Most of us got a few little splashes The boat in the background were actually feeding the birds - bad practice!

A Great Skua hopeful of a feed from us - he was out of luck

We managed to get very quite to this large community but we were careful not to spook them

Most of these are Northern Gannets

Most of the birds were as curious about us as we were about them. This one flew in for a closer look

Magnificent bird

To say the least it was very atmospheric 

These gannets are sitting on nests made of scraps of seaweed and other things such as fishing nets and lines (a bit blurry)

This is Heidi, the ship’s naturalist, our zodiac driver for that excursion. When we came back out to open sea the kayakers paddled in to this chasm of calm.