by Ann Cleeves
The Shetland wren.
Shetland is famous for its natural history, and many visitors come in the hope of seeing otters, orcas or puffins (known in Shetland as ‘tammie norries’). While the islands have a population of around 22,000 people, there are 300,000 pairs of the most common seabird – the fulmar – breeding on the sea cliffs. In winter, however, the cliffs are bare and many of the bird species seen in the islands come from even further north, from the northwest and north-east.
Shetland’s resident mammals can be seen throughout the year – after all, they have nowhere to go! It’s thought that all the land species in the islands were introduced over the last 6,000 years. Even the otter is unlikely to have arrived unaided. The isolation of the population means that some animals have evolved slightly differently from UK mainland species; for example, there are a number of distinct variations of Shetland mouse, and separate subspecies have been described in Yell, Foula and Fair Isle. All have slightly redder fur than UK mainland mice, and both Shetland house and field mice are slightly larger. The Shetland wren is larger than the bird found elsewhere in Britain, and another separate subspecies has developed just in Fair Isle. The Fair Isle wrens are smaller than those in Mainland Shetland, but bigger than those in mainland UK.
A mother otter and her cub on the shore.
Shetland probably has a larger otter population than anywhere else in Britain, and visitors can see these animals throughout the islands. While they are most readily visible at dawn and dusk, it’s possible to catch a glimpse of them at any time of day, especially on the boulder beaches or around the piers while waiting for an inter-island ferry.
There are rabbits in huge numbers and a variety of colours all over the islands. There are no natural predators (except man) in Shetland, so white, black and multicoloured rabbits can survive in the brown landscape, as well as better-camouflaged individuals. The mountain hare was introduced from Scotland to the Kergord Estate in about 1907 and is now found on heather moorland throughout Shetland Mainland. It doesn’t turn completely white in winter, but heavy snow is unusual, so it still stands out against the bare hillside. The brown hare, which was also introduced, has now died out.
A mountain hare.
Most of Shetland’s breeding birds desert the islands in the winter, but they are replaced by migrants moving south, often from their breeding territories. Sheltered voes and coastal bays are home to divers and to Slavonian grebes. The black-throated diver is a rare visitor, but the larger and impressive great northern diver is more regular. It has a distinctive thickset head, stout neck and long straight bill. In flight its feet project behind it, like big spades. Research has shown that approximately 50 per cent of the wintering great northern divers come from breeding sites in Iceland. The remaining birds originate in Greenland and north-eastern Canada.
Sea-ducks include the sociable eiders (‘dunters’ in Shetland dialect), which collect in groups along the shore. Their calls sound like the gentle murmuring of gossiping old ladies. In late winter the black-and-white males throw back their heads in display. There are also long-tailed ducks, goldeneyes and red-breasted mergansers. A large group of wigeon, another species of duck, might be seen in the low farmland pastures. Their distinctive whistling sound of ‘wee-oo’ carries far along the coast as they crop the short grass. They will have travelled from Iceland, Scandinavia or Russia.
The great northern diver.
Cliffs on Bressay near Lerwick.
A flock of wigeon.
Wading birds find a winter home in the islands. Turnstones and ringed plovers are widely distributed. They can be seen on rocky headlands as well as along the shore in sandy bays. And dark-purple sandpipers, recognizable by their curved bills, forage among the seaweed and barnacle-covered rocks. It has been discovered that the shorter-billed birds originate from the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard and from Scandinavian populations, and the longer-billed individuals are from Arctic Canada; both groups can figure in Shetland’s wintering and migratory flocks.
Greylag geese breed in Shetland, but their numbers increase substantially in winter. They find the low grassland to their liking and the habitat can attract up to 10,000 individuals. Many of these birds will have come from Iceland.
A ringed plover.
A purple sandpiper.
A greylag goose.
A flock of snow buntings.
I’m not a birdwatcher, but occasionally I’m moved by a sight that takes my breath away. The vision of hundreds of snow buntings, as white as snowflakes, twisting together as a flock across the in-bye land on the Shetland coast has done just that. The Shetland name for the species is ‘snaa ful’ or snow bird, and once it was considered good eating in the Northern Isles, either boiled or roasted! The birds were usually caught in simple traps set around the crofts, but there are also records of them being caught in Fair Isle by horsehair nooses attached to a board. Now they are appreciated for the spectacle they provide, rather than for their taste.
Although snow buntings do breed in small numbers in the Scottish Highlands, most of the birds that arrive in Shetland from mid-autumn onwards are migrants from the north. Ringing recoveries show that the majority of these individuals come from Iceland, while the rest are from Greenland. In the last fifty years the numbers of winter and migrating snow buntings have declined. If climate change means that the birds will winter further north, this trend is likely to continue and I’ll miss out on the glory of a flock of black-and-white snow buntings brightening a gloomy Shetland day.
Whooper swans at sunset.
Even in stormy weather it’s possible to hear whooper swans over the noise of the wind, before you see them flying in from the coast. They are named after the loud whooping of their call. When the swans travel in family groups it’s easy to spot the browner young birds, which have hatched in Iceland that summer. Most whooper swans seen in Shetland are birds passing through in the autumn, but some stay and spend the winter on one of the larger lochs. These birds first bred in Shetland in 1994, and very small numbers have been recorded breeding in recent years. Their movement has been charted by ornithologists, who mark the swans with numbered coloured rings. When I worked in the observatory in Fair Isle I helped the scientists one night when they went to catch swans for ringing on Golden Water, a loch to the north of the island. One person dazzled the swan with torchlight while the other moved behind it to catch it. I travelled back to base in the observatory Land Rover with a swan on my knee; once there, it was weighed, ringed and then released.
Eshaness cliffs and Muckle Ossa in the distance.
An Iceland gull.
A Ross’s gull.
Interesting gulls can be seen in Shetland’s harbours and inshore waters as they search for food. In recent years the area around the Shetland Catch fish-processing building in Lerwick has been a great place to watch. Birders are looking out for the ‘white wingers’ (birding slang for glaucous and Iceland gulls). The glaucous gull is a heavy-backed monster, which may have come from Svalbard or from further west. Confusingly, Iceland gulls don’t come from Iceland, but breed in Greenland!
While these gulls catch the attention of birdwatchers, there are two even rarer visitors to the islands, which are considered much more exciting. Both Ross’s gull and the ivory gull are beautiful and very occasional visitors. Ross’s gull is a stunning bird, with its delicate black bill and diamond-shaped tail. The first-ever British Ross’s gull was found in 1936 between Whalsay and the Out Skerries by a fisherman called John Irvine. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that there is a Whalsay fisherman today named John Irvine, who is a keen birdwatcher, photographer and descendant of the finder. The species is named after the British explorer James Clarke Ross, who collected a specimen of the bird in northern Canada in 1823. Most of the Ross’s gulls found in Shetland have been seen between November and January.
A glaucous gull.
The rare ivory gull.
The graceful ivory gull is another Arctic species that occurs occas
ionally in Shetland. Normally wintering on the pack ice, and often following hunting polar bears to feed on their faeces or take scraps from their seal kills, the ivory gull is tough and, despite its eating habits, very elegant. Records in Shetland span the months from November to February, and most birds are in juvenile plumage: white with black ermine markings on the wings.
In the past, birds occupying the inshore habitats have come into contact with the development of the oil industry and with spillages from larger fishing vessels. Oil spills in 1979 and from the Braer disaster in 1993, for example, killed several hundred long-tailed ducks. Careful counting by local ornithologists revealed that the numbers of wintering water fowl took several years to recover. A funded and very positive relationship between the oil industry in Shetland and expert seabird biologists has developed over many decades. Now a regular and accurate census of birds, preventative methods and strategies, and good forward planning have reduced the risk to local wildlife.
Jackie Sandison of Unst knitting while carrying a ‘kishie’ of peat, leading a pony carrying peat in a ‘meshie’, c.1905.
Perhaps the most famous of Shetland’s animals is domestic rather than wild. Although they appear to roam wild, all the unique Shetland ponies are owned and looked after by local crofters. Their coats change with the seasons, and in winter they develop a double coat with guard-hairs to shed the rain. They also have a thick mane and tail to help protect them against the worst of Shetland’s weather. For at least 4,000 years these small ponies – which don’t exceed forty-two inches in height – have roamed the hills in comparative isolation. This has led to the evolution of individuals ideally suited to their environment. It is said that Shetland ponies ‘are foaled in the hills, live in the hills and die in the hills’. They graze on hill ground, known as ‘scattald’, and in some places forage on seaweed on the beaches.
In the mid-nineteenth century new laws prevented British coalmines from employing women and children in the pits. Shetland’s ponies made ideal substitutes; they were sufficiently hardy to survive the conditions underground, and small and strong enough to haul trucks of coal through the tunnels. At first ponies were simply rounded up and transported south, but later in the century there were breeding studs – the best known of these operated in the islands of Noss and Bressay. At home, Shetland ponies were used as workhorses to cultivate the land and to transport peat from the hills. Now they are a huge tourist attraction and every visitor wants a photograph of these captivating creatures.
Shetland ponies live outdoors year-round.
Spring flowers at Sumburgh.
A spring lamb at Hermaness Nature Reserve on Unst.
Voar Day by Lollie Graham (1924–2009)
Spring Day
Oh, whin I göd furt dat moarnin
da hale o da heevins abön
wis singing a sang a gledness
as toh winter hed never been.
Oh, when I went out that morning
the whole sky above
was singing a song of gladness
as though winter had never been.
Dere wis da birds i da heevins
singing der hych clear sangs
blyde, O blyde for da sunlycht
warm ipon vimmerin wings.
There were the birds in the heavens
singing their high clear songs
glad, O glad of the sunlight
warm upon quivering wings.
An whin I cam hame i da mirknin
wi da starns aa happit fae sycht
da sang wis still liltin athin me,
da croon o da lift was brycht.
And when I came home in the twilight
with the stars all hidden from sight
the song was still lilting within me,
the crown of the sky was bright.
Spring, or ‘Voar’ as it’s known in Shetland dialect, comes late to the islands. While lambs are born in January and February in the south, they don’t appear on the Shetland hills until March or April. The species of Shetland sheep is thought to have originated in Scandinavia; it’s small, hardy and adaptable and can survive the wild island weather. Like the Orkney North Ronaldsay animals, Shetland’s sheep feed on seaweed and can be seen clambering around the rocky beaches. The wool is exceptionally soft and fine and the meat is very tasty, whether it’s cooked as lamb or mutton. Recently the Shetland has been crossbred with Cheviot, Blackface or Suffolk sheep to provide heavier fleeces and bigger carcasses, but some of the quality of both wool and meat is lost. Wool brokers in Shetland send the spun yarn all over the world.
I’ve set two of my books in spring, and I first arrived in the islands in late April. After a long, dark winter it’s a time of hope, of getting outside to work the land and getting small boats back onto the water for fishing, setting creels or just for pleasure. The first rowing regattas begin at the end of April, when teams throughout the islands race the traditional yoals. The whole community is involved: there are women’s and veterans’ teams, as well as those made up of fit young men. The flowers appear and the seabirds return. Tourists take advantage of the longer days and better weather to visit the islands. Cruise ships can be seen again, moored in the harbour in Lerwick.
Symbister Marina.
Red Bones was my first spring book. It was planned after a chance meeting in a Lerwick cafe with a birding friend, who at that time was a GP on the island of Whalsay. He leaned across the table and seemed very serious: ‘You do know they hate you in Whalsay, Ann?’
I make every effort not to alienate my island readership, so this came as rather a shock. But, on reflection, I could see what might have caused the problem. I write traditional crime fiction and my central character, Jimmy Perez, is clever and compassionate. His sidekick, Sandy Wilson – in the way of detective pairings since Holmes and Watson – isn’t so bright; he had to come from somewhere, and quite by chance I’d decided that he should come from Whalsay.
In the first two books in the series we don’t learn very much about Sandy, except that he’s young and inexperienced, and maybe a little bit stupid. I decided that in the third novel we should see him on his home patch and view the world through his eyes. I wanted to set him in context, and for readers to know more about his family and its traditions. That was enough for me to begin Red Bones.
Whalsay is an island of contrasts. It is home to the biggest pelagic fishing fleet in Shetland, with huge and expensive trawlers moored in the natural harbour of Symbister when they are not at sea. And it’s a friendly island, where traditions are valued and maintained. The Whalsay dialect is different from anywhere else in the islands and, even though my ears are pretty well attuned to Shetland voices, when two Whalsay folk are speaking together I don’t understand a word. They have to ‘knap’ for me. ‘Knapping’ means speaking ‘proper’ English and is sometimes seen as an affectation, but in Whalsay I’m often very grateful for it.
A quiet corner of Whalsay.
The two Whalsay ferries, Linga and Hendra, pass one another, while a helicopter hovers nearby. The fisherman in the foreground is setting creels.
Whalsay Golf Club.
Sundews, tiny carnivorous plants, thrive in Shetland bogs.
Because most families on Whalsay are engaged in fishing, there is little intensive cultivation on the island and fewer sheep than elsewhere. The result is a profusion of wild flowers in the spring. The most northerly golf course in the UK is found in Skaw, in Whalsay; it’s beautifully maintained and has a view to the north-east across to the Out Skerries, two islands linked by a narrow bridge, and one of the more remote communities in the archipelago.
The Skerries school has just one pupil. The poet Hugh MacDiarmid lived in Whalsay; his former house is now a camping böd. There are böds throughout the islands, often in the most spectacular places. They are council-owned buildings that can come in many shapes and sizes – there’s a tower in Nesbister and a sail loft in Voe – and they provide cheap hostel accommodation for visitors.
A wedding in Whalsay is a huge island event. After the ceremony perhaps 800 people will gather in the hall for music and dancing. The island has a special cookhouse; the men of the family cut up twelve sheep and cook the meat in giant pots over an open peat fire. The pots are then carried to the hall, where supper is served in sittings in a side-room. The mutton is eaten with bannocks – flatbreads made without yeast – and afterwards there are home-baked cakes. In the middle of the wedding the bride and groom go out and visit the old people of the island who cannot get to the hall. The celebrations then carry on into the night. As is common in weddings throughout the rest of Shetland, there is a second night of festivities.
In Red Bones I was interested in looking at the contrast between the wealthy Whalsay families who own the trawlers and a family of crofters who were still scratching a living from the land. At the beginning of the book Sandy’s grandmother, Mima, is killed. The plot takes us back to the Second World War and the story of the ‘Shetland Bus’, the small boats that carried resistance fighters to Norway. One strand of the story leads back even further, to the time of Hanseatic trade. I was interested in the metaphor of archaeology as a means of stripping away layers of a family’s history, to see what causes the stresses and problems of the present. Much of the action of the book takes place around an archaeological dig, and I was fortunate to have the help of Shetland’s archaeologist Val Turner to provide details. A research trip to Bradford University, which has carried out long-term archaeological research in the islands, gave me the title of the book – the ancient bones recovered from the peaty soil of Shetland are indeed a rusty-red colour.