A Wild Adventure In The Orkneys

Wildfowling in the Orkneys offers thrilling sport – and helps the island’s beleaguered farmers control the over-abundant geese

- Jonathan Young

As we picked our way along the dyke, the labrador rustled up a brown shape that flapped off into the gloaming. “A bittern!” we called in unison, the first any of us had seen. The old boomer seemed a long way from his usual fenland haunt but the Orkneys have always thronged with wildfowl, some less popular than our little brown heron.

It’s estimated there are 15,000 to 20,000 resident greylags on the islands, their bat talions swelled by 65,000 winter migrants, including some pinkfeet in October. The resulting damage to cereals and pasture has been so serious that Scottish Natural Heritage has endorsed a heavy cull programme and allowed the local sale of goose meat in an effort to encourage shooting.

A prominent farmer, who has a thousand acres near Kirkwall, told Farmers Weekly, “Over the winter there are 900 geese on the farm every day, dropping to 200 in the summer, and they’re compromising the way we’re able to farm. We have 600 acres near the water that is out of bounds to certain crops now. We work gas guns and use flags and shoot under licence. It’s a real battle and when you are lambing, calving, turning cattle outside and working 16- to 18-hour days you don’t have time to keep the geese off the fields,” he continued.

With such an abundance of quarry, the Orkneys have been attracting fowlers for decades, many hosted and guided by Richard Zawadski, whose father, a Polish cavalry officer, arrived here after the war, eventually owning Balfour Castle on Shapinsay, one of the smaller islands.