Finding Your Way Around

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Brodgar Finding your way around Ring of Brodgar Nature reserve footpath footpath It’s a 330 m stroll from the car park It’s worth taking the time to explore to the Ring of Brodgar, including this iconic site further. Stroll around a boardwalk lined by wetland the loch shore on our 1.5 mile (2 km) wildflowers in spring and summer. path for views of the whole area from a different angle, including the You could spot almost any of Orkney’s nearby Stones of Stenness. birds flying over the Ring itself, from curlews to Arctic skuas. Look around Look out for common seals in the loch. to appreciate the landscape in which Skylarks and curlews nest nearby and these 36 stones sit: a bowl of hills, at any time of year you could spot alive with wildlife all year round. brown hares in the surrounding fields. In spring sedge Key warblers and reed buntings sing from the bushes here. You might Grassland even be lucky enough to hear a drumming snipe. Water Bench Kissing gate Look out for curlew, redshank, Parking oystercatcher and lapwing chicks in this field. Their Disabled parking watchful parents often perch on Loch of Harray Ring of Brodgar footpath In spring marsh marigold nearby fence posts. brightens these wet areas. You may spot shelducks, Nature reserve footpath shovelers, teals or perhaps a passing pintail on the pools. Public footpath Please keep dogs under Ring of close control and don’t enter Brodgar fields with lambs or calves. In spring, male meadow pipits Wondering what the old bales, display above the seaweed and manure are for? Ring, flying high then They encourage nettles and parachuting down on cow parsley, offering shelter outstretched wings. in early spring and autumn to Orkney voles and corncrakes. Loch of Stenness N To Stones In winter you might spot of Stenness wigeons, teals, mallards, tufted ducks, scaups, W E pochards or Slavonian grebes on either loch. S 0 150m 300m Common seals often “banana” on rocks offshore here. Map © Crown copyright. All rights reserved. RSPB licence 100021787..

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The Orkney Islands the Orkney Islands
The by Carolyn Emerick Orkney Islands Let me take you down, cause we’re goin’ to... Skara Brae! The Islands of Orkney are a mystical place decline prior to the Viking invasion. Why it steeped in history and legend. Like the rest was declining is yet another mystery. It would of the British Isles, Orkney is an amalgam of appear that either the Picts required the aid of influences. The ancients left their mark from pre- Vikings, or that their situation left them wide history with their standing stones and neolithic open for a foreign invador to move in. settlements. Then came the Picts, however they What is known, is that the Viking settlement remain even more of a mystery as the Picts left of Orkney was so complete that virtually no very little evidence of their existence in Orkney place names of Pictish origin survive. In the behind. So scarce is the evidence, in fact, that rest of Britain, place names can be used to show until recently scholars questioned whether they the mixed heritage and influence of the various were there at all. It was the Vikings that left their settlers, from Celt to Roman, and especially the stamp on Orkney so strongly that their influence Germanic settlers such as the Angles, Saxons, can be found in the culture to this day. Danes, and so forth. The Vikings first began settling Orkney in the The Orkney Islands are late eighth century. From the records available, shown in Red with the we can only speculate what happened to the Shetland Islands off to Picts who had been living on the Islands prior the upper right in this to Viking settlement.
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Isbn 1 903570 21 2
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