Wanderings: February 2017

Shetland February 2017

It’s been a longer than usual gap since the last chunk of time in residence at the south end of Shetland - and there’s been some weather recently too which took it’s toll on the fences. Fortunately one of the neighbours did manage to retrieve the bits that were scattered down the road so all I was presented with was a rather heavy jigsaw.

What, no fence?

Having lamented the recent weather (and sorted the fence) I was then able to enjoy several days of typical February temperatures but very untypical precipitation and wind. And as you might expect this gave the perfect excuse for wandering the beaches and headlands both down at the south end and (for a change) up in Northmavine (the wild Shetland northwest frontier) and particularly around Eshaness.

Quendale Beach

Scat Ness

Lady's Holm at the mouth of Quendale Bay, and Fair Isle on the horizon

Eshaness Lighthouse

Stampede Shetland-style at Quendale

Oystercatchers on Quendale Beach

Over The Fence

One of the joys of being in the Shetland house is looking out of the window.

From the south side of the house we look out onto Quendale Bay - with Lady's Holm in the middle distance, and (on a good day) Fair Isle on the horizon.

The view is in some ways unchanging - and in other ways changes minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, tide-by-tide and day-by-day.

At some times of the year you can see porpoises feeding in the bay, at others gannets diving and seals basking on the rocks in front of the house - and very occasionally orca wander into the bay looking for the seals.

Sunday 11th February

Saturday 12th February

Monday 13th February

Tuesday 14th February

Wednesday 15th February

Thursday 16th February

Friday 17th February

Saturday 18th February

Photographing Scotland - Project Update: February 2017

The first step in my Landranger maps-based project to photograph Scotland is figuring out where I'm starting from - I think I've got images from 35 of the 80 or so Ordnance Survey Landranger maps of Scotland, and probably one or two more that I've missed on my initial haul through the picture archive - I knew there wasn't enough metadata!

The next step is to figure out routes through various bits of Scotland (with suitable photo-stops) to let me tick off the missing locations!