Marwick Head

The largest seabird colony on Orkney coastline well evidenced by the pungent aroma. I recognised fulmars, razorbills and the usual gulls.

It was a tad windy. An Orcadian word for a very strong gale or storm-wind is “Katrizper”, the Old Norse ‘kattar-rispur’, literally ‘cat’s-scratches’.

The ugly structure that dominates the headland is The Kitchener Memorial, a 48-feet high stone tower erected in 1926 in memory of Earl Kitchener of Khartoum, Britain’s Secretary of War who was one of the 737 who died when the HMS Hampshire struck a mine 1.5 miles offshore on the 5th June 1916. There were just 12 survivors who managed to find themselves washed up ashore.