The Maywick Times

Snowy Lancer

Whilst the rest of the UK seems burdened with snow I must say we’ve been having a great time ! Most days are bright and sunny with no wind so we’re out and about from dawn ’til dusk. The ponies are loving it ! Their paddocks are all snow and ice but they’re getting fed every 3 hours during the day and we’re getting to the beach with them for a couple of hours every day. Logie Bear has more enthusiasm for life now than in the Summer, you’ll even catch him lying down sun bathing for a while in the middle of the day ! Shetland ponies are truely very hardy small horses !…and very hairy in Winter !

Snowy Logie Bear

The chickens seem OK too. We heard our first cockerel crowing on Boxing Day…sounded pretty dodgy but since then he’s been perfecting his ‘beautiful’ song  and a couple of other cockerels are beginning to join in too.  No eggs yet but we’re hoping come the warmer Spring weather the girls will be earning their keep…and there’ll be one or two less boys !

Re: Starlings ! Negotiations broke down but ‘Mannie’ the ginger tabby cat  has taken to spending time in the log shed where the chickens spend their days and the starlings are staying well clear ! food or no food !

I've got cold feet !

We’ve been making good use of Havra during the quieter months. Ailish has now had 2 parties and 2 sleepovers and Tricia had all her girly rowing pals around for a curry night before Christmas and they’ve planned an Italian night for February ! Additionally we spent Hogmanay at Havra with a few friends and a roaring log fire. Come 1-00am we dressed up and headed for the beach ! There was a beautiful full moon and with the snow reflecting so brightly no torches were required. Great Night !

Hand-Made Fish was typically manic pre Christmas and I had so much smoked salmon to make that, given the real possibility of being stuck in Maywick with the snow, I spent 4 nights in Lerwick ’til Christmas eve. Ailish was stuck at her pal’s house for a couple of nights due to the snow, so poor Trish was home alone for the first time in 15 years !

We would have expected to have seen the Northern Lights by now with such clear night skies but I guess with the moon being so bright and very low sun spot activity there’s not much chance. However the other night on TV someone stated that most of the UK can’t even see the Milky Way due to light pollution…….Not a problem here (in the Winter !). And we can still go sattelite spotting…..

Not much bird activity at the moment but I was outside on the swing the other evening when a dozen Whooper swans flew South along the valley so close you could hear their wings beating and them ‘honking’ to each other as they went………pretty special.

October however turned out to be an amazing birdy month with so many rare and varied little brown jobs turning up all over Shetland. The Maywick valley and the South End of Shetland as ever getting more than their fare share of rarities.  www.nature-shetland.co.uk gives a mouth watering list of bird sightings and sea mammal sightings going back to 2003.

Trish says there’s already 9 weeks booked for Havra this year, mostly mid Summer. I must say I love May and June. May for the long awaited Spring flowers and usually calm sunny weather and June for the arrival of the ‘Tirricks’ -Common and Arctic Terns. For me the Swallows of the sea. I love listening to their squabbling at their nest site across the valley from us up on the cliff tops and on calm Summer evenings watching them ‘dipping’ for sandeels in the shallows of Maywick beach. Those evenings that last forever………..

Havra is named after the island of South Havra just to the North West of Maywick.

Andrew Jamieson of South Havra came to Maywick and refurbished Havra some time in the 1880’s. I hope this Winter to spend some time delving into his and his family’s history and to discover how they lived and which house he was born in on South Havra. At the moment I have no good links to South Havra but there are a few snippets of information available via any search engine.

I’m also toying with the idea of keeping my boat in the corner of St Ninians Isle so that we can make the occasional trip to South Havra when the weather permits during the Summer months. It’s folk history and its links to Maywick are fascinating and I’m told that its horizontal windmill is of a design only found in Greece !

I’ve come ‘next door’ to Havra, fired up the log stove and settled down with a cup of coffee and some of Tricias pancakes with rhubarb and ginger jam.

After nearly 5 months of amazingly good weather the Autumn Equinox has brought us wind and rain with some nice ‘days atween the weather’.

We’ve just taken the ponies for a good long walk to Bigton, then Ireland and Yaafield back to Maywick. Lancer was fine but Logie Bear still hates the rain and was NOT happy !

Our latest arrivals – 7 Buff Orpington chickens – are settling in nicely. Their house (Fort Knox) is my old stainless steel kipper smoker – easily cleaned and Polecat proof ! They will be going on to organic feed in a couple of weeks time once discussions with the local starling population have reached a conclusion ! Hopefully by next Easter the girls will be providing lovely organic eggs for all who stay at Havra.

The highlight of my Maywick year must be getting Havra’s roof cleaned, repaired and painted – it’s now black, not red – It took me weeks of my spare time to get it done but I’m very happy with the result. Old houses are ALWAYS a lot of work !

The good weather this Summer blessed us with many calm evenings. Coupled with an abundance of ‘feed’ in the sea it gave us a lot of amusement paddling with the ponies disturbing flat fish feeding in the shallows. Logie being so inquisitive was quick to spot these things darting away from his feet ! There can’t be too many Shetland Ponies around that know what a Turbot looks like !

The breeding seabirds have faired pretty well this year and even our local Terns and Puffins have raised some young. The Red Throated Divers have also done OK on the loch in spite of their having to share their home with a couple of pairs of noisy Greylag Geese that didn’t want to fly further North !

In August Maywick beach was visited by a loan Humpback whale who’s been living locally all Summer, followed a week later by 5 or 6 Risso’s dolphins. Our local Harbour Porpoises have been visible most days throughout the Summer due to the calm seas and just this last few weeks there have been as many as 50 or so porpoises feeding below the cliffs at Cunningsburgh.

‘Til now there have been very few migrant birds turning up in Shetland due to the unfavourable wind directions and also no stormy weather. There are a couple of good websites to go to for Shetland weather forecasts and I have added these to our links.

Those of you who’d enjoy a bit of ‘rough and tumble’ Shetland style, should follow the weather sites as a big blow will be forecast some days before it reaches us. Ideally we’d need continuous West or South West winds over gale force for a few days increasing to storm force or more to give us the amazing big seas we see almost annually.