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Walking Group One 25th April 2024
Five hardy souls collected today at Happy Valley for the first Hill Walk of the year .The temperature was cool with a North Easterly wind blowing and a hint of rain on arrival.
Off we set heading towards Russadale Quarry, spotting a Buzzard on the way.Turning into the footpath we remained sheltered from the wind all the way to the top of the hill.
The sun was out at the Quarry and a Greenshank was feeding at the edge of the Lochan. Then it was up the Peat road to the summit with spectacular views across Stenness and Harray Lochs, plus a view of the Closed Road beyond the Watch Stone. On the other side we looked over the Flow and down towards the Oil Platform and South Ronaldsay
Then it was back down after a stop for a snack and finally a walk around Happy Valley itself. The Daffodils planted by James and others were looking lovely and the Bluebells are days away from opening. Then it was on to a well deserved lunch at the Pier Cafe, having walked 4 miles and gone up 800 feet (and down again )
The next walk will be on Friday 24th May and hopefully more hills and views.
Keep moving.
U3A Moth Group - 6th August 2021
by Peter Slater - 19:16 on 07 August 2021
The day we chose for the inaugural meeting of our new moth group was not particularly auspicious, being quite cool, with a spot or two of rain overnight, and rather windy. The trap was placed the previous evening outside my house (Vagaland. Stromness) but, having blown over, had to be moved to a more sheltered spot down the garden. The lamp was set to be on from 10pm to 5am. Ten U3A members gathered at 10am (Jeannie Wright, Gillian Midgley, Kate Sutton, Trevor Kaye, Peter Slater, Barbara Todd, Ian Robertson, Nan Traill Thomson, Ian Robertson, Jenny Taylor) and Sydney Gauld, the Orkney moth recorder, joined us to help get us started. A few the moths would certainly have foiled us without his help, so much thanks to him.
The catch was not enormous, but we had 50-100 moths to go through. As usual in early August, two species were particularly common, Dark arches and Large yellow underwing, and we were able to learn their salient features. But we also has small numbers of several other species, so we ended up recording 11 macro-moths (Common rustic, Large yellow underwing, Dark arches, Antler moth, Dotted clay, Lesser broad-bordered yellow underwing, Snout, Smoky wainscot, Middle barred minor, Double dart, Burnished brass) and one micro (Agriphila tristella).
A good start to the new group. We hope to meet again in 2-3 weeks.
PS
Dark arches (Photo by Barbara)
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