So I came home at 18.45 tonight so by time we had a meal etc I didn’t have time to do anything, okay not entirely true, I managed some time on War Thunder, I just couldn’t be bothered to get anything out.

When I got home I found a parcel on the table, and more terrain stuff from Geek Gaming was inside the box.

I was sent a really interesting story by my wife today, rather than type it all out again I have copied and pasted it for your perusal.

  • In about 1700 Mary’s parents were shearing their corn at their croft of Stutaft near Baltasound, Unst, and Mary was lying in her shawl close by, at the side of the rig. After they had shorn a certain number of sheaves they proceeded to set them up in stooks. In so doing they moved a short distance from their infant who was fast asleep. To their horror a sea-eagle or erne, swooped down, clutched the bairn in the shawl in its talons, and flew off to the south.
    With some neighbours, they followed the flight of the eagle, which on reaching Colvadale, altered course for the Blue-Banks of Fetlar. The men went on to the south-east corner of Unst where at Ramnagio they procured a boat and went to Fetlar, landing at Colbinstoft. On informing the inhabitants there of their mission, they were informed that the eagle had her eyrie at Busta-Pund, at the East Neaps. A number of Fetlar men now joined them and went with ropes to the top of the cliffs above the eyrie situated under an overhang on the cliff face.
    Among the Fetlar men was a 12 year old boy, the son of Nicol Peterson of Crosbister, his name owing to the patronymic surnames in use, being Robert Nicolson. He volunteered to make the descent on the rope to the nest and was lowered over the cliff. To his amazement on reaching the nest, he found the child fast asleep along with two eaglets in the nest. He carefully disentangled the shawl from the nest, and was hauled up the cliff with his precious bundle to the safety of the cliff top and the crowd of men waiting there. Amongst the profuse congratulations extended to young Robert for his courageous deed was one from an elderly Unst man who said that he would maybe get her for a wife yet.
    Several years later some men from Fetlar had occasion to go to Unst and Robert taking the opportunity to go with them made a visit to the home of the young woman whom he had carried up the cliff face of Busta-Pund as an infant. The meeting proved to fulfil the old man’s prophecy for it ended as a good fairy tale should with the marriage of Robert Nicolson and Mary Anderson. They settled for a short time at Fetlar, but later moved their home to Kirkabister, on the north side of Mid Yell Voe where they raised their family.

    Abridged from:- Shetland Life, August 1981 page 14, by Robert L. Johnson.

Sea Eagles were common on Shetland, as were peregrine falcons (the best being found on the island of Fair Isle). Neither have survived into the 20th century. We do however still get visiting birds that cause twitchers the length and breadth of the UK to flock to our little island. In fact we had a rare warbler or something in our Kale Yard (the name of the planting area outside a Croft house). We only knew about it when half a dozen blokes with giant lenses on their camera’s turned up tromping down the track.

Out of interest we have had a flamingos on Shetland in 2013 a flock was seen on Strand Loch in Tingwall (the place I showed flooded last week)…

Not what you expect to find on Shetland

These were wild birds (we have had escaped/lost ones before). The people that know these things worked out that they probably came from India or Pakistan due to the wind speed and direction.

8 thoughts on “New Stuff

  1. Order looks cool and the story was interesting. Sea eagles almost died out in Finland, too, but now they have been revived. While 30-40 couples were counted in 1975, the population currently stands at around 1000 individuals. We sometimes see them around our summer place, and man, they’re massive!

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