Current Work

Reserve Officer for Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) on the Island of Unst, Shetland.

I'm now the Warden of Hermaness NNR, and the Keen of Hamar NNR on the Island of Unst, which is part of the Shetland Isles, way, way up north over 1000km north of London, and the most northerly inhabited island in the UK!

The journey up here was quite a trip, driving all the way to Aberdeen via Edinburgh, followed by a 14½hr ferry to Lerwick (this is also where the supermarket is). Fortunately it runs overnight, so you can have a good nights sleep in a cabin. Then there's a 2hr drive through the islands, up through the Mainland (that's the main Shetland Island), Yell and then Unst, with two short ferry crossings between the islands.

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The busy port of Aberdeen	First view of Lerwick	Unst and Fetlar Ferry

The flat I live in is part of the Muckle Flugga Lighthouse shorestation, built in 1856 for the lighthouse keepers from Muckle Flugga when they were off duty, which also contains a visitor centre for the reserve. Infront of the shore station is Burra Firth, a beautiful calm bay with a golden sandy beach at the end, and behind is a small stony bay with a slipway, so we are surrounded by the sea on three sides. When the sun is shining it is absolutely amazing as you can see from the photos below.

The bay behind the house	View from house into Burra Firth	Burra Firth beach

Hermaness NNR is a 5km long and 2km headland made up of heathland, blanket bog, rough grazing, and small pools of water. It is also surrounded by spectacular cliffs up to 170m high. There are over 100,000 breeding birds here including Gannets, Fulmars, Kittiwakes, Guillemots, Razorbills, Puffins (Tammie Norries), Great Skua (Bonxies), Arctic Skua, Red-throated Divers (Rain Geese), Snipe, Dunlin, Golden Plover, and in the garden Eider usually nest!

Looking south across Hermanes NNR
Eiders infront of the shore station	Bar-tailed Godwit	Great Skuas (Bonxies)

The Keen of Hamar NNR is based around geology and botany, and has some really rare plants like Northern rock cress, Norwegian sandwort, and Edmondston's chickweed. All the plants are really small, it's an exposed place with high levels of heavy metals, and looks like a stony desert, so you have to crawl round on your hands and knees to get a good look. In the more hospitable places on the reserve there are some more well known plants, although these are again rather stunted, like scurvy grass, fairy flax, mountain everlasting, frog orchid, early purple orchid, fragrant orchid and many others.

Scurvy Grass on the Keen, stunted and tinged pink by the conditions	Edmonton's Chickweed, exceedingly rare, very small and hard to find	Haroldswick with Saxa Vord in the background

On Unst there are 3 general stores where you can get food and all the other essentials, one bakes fresh bread daily and they are all in and around a village called Baltasound. There is also a post office and a bank which doubles up as a hairdressers, a hotel/pub/diner, a leisure centre, a pier and marina, and an international airport. When I say international it used to serve the oil rigs some of which were in Norwegian territorial water, but it now lies unused. Perhaps more important than any of these is the most northerly brewery in the UK, Valhala brewery which makes a variety of beers available to buy anywhere in the UK over the internet. There are also two places to get fuel in Baltasound, if you think that fuel is expensive spare a thought for the us where diesel is £1.35 per litre. At Haroldswick there is a Boat Haven detailing the history of boats and fishing in Shetland, a Heritage Centre, and a bistro called Northern Lights.

The shore station even comes with a helipad!	Beautiful evening, beautiful bay (are you envious yet?)

All the houses on the island are fairly well spread out, even within the villages, but there are oddities like the dissused Saxa Vord MOD base which has an associated military base style housing estate. This now serves as a holiday resort with a restaurant and also a chocolate factory and cafe.

There are lots of great places to watch wildlife on the island. At Norwick there are some areas of scrub and bushes which are magnets to birds, there is also a small wood at Haligarth, Baltasound, these are the only 'proper' trees on the island. Haroldswick and Baltasound bays are good for seals and birds, and there are some pools at Haroldswick that are attractive to waders and wildfowl. At the south end of Unst is Uyeasound, Easter Loch is quite good here, and you can also go to Muness Castle, and a knitware shop too. Just by the northern entrance to Bluemull sound (which separates Yell and Unst) is Westing, this is perhaps the best place to see Otters, and also offers some lovely coastline to walk along.

Puffin enjoying the sun	Looking out to sea
Midnight glow in the sky	Shore station and night sky