Shetland Photos - Air , Land & Sea

Photos about Shetland

inside the plane at Tingwall Airport

Harry's toy store

Lerwick...

Foula

face in the cloads.

Shetland Knitting

On of the many Buff-tailed Bumblebees in the flower park

Bumble Bees - 2 New Shetland Records

Buff - Tailed Bumblebee Bombus terrestris?

A first record for Shetland

Photographed Tommy H. Hyndman in the Auld Haa House garden on Fair Isle, Shetland - March 28th 2012.

to quote one naturalist: 

 "It looks to be a very fresh looking Bombus terrestris queen – a species which has not yet been recorded in Orkney or Shetland so far as I know. Was the photo definitely taken on Fair Isle?

 If so it’s a very surprising find!"

2 B or Not 2 B

Hey kids! the pros say it's a very early record of 
Bombus muscorum (Shetland Bumble Bee)
Earliest ever recorded in Shetland  -March 27th 2012 
Henry's Bee found in the school play ground- Photo by Amber

It was 11 year old Henry that I saw the first Bee of spring... on the Fair Isle Primary School playground. His classmate 10 year old Amber took the photo with the school camera! After hearing about the other rare Bumble Bee their photo was reviewed and at first a bit disappointed, but, they were made quite proud to find the earliest Shetland record! 

Well Done Kids!

Happy Birthday Jimmy (Midway) Stout! - 101 years old today

James A. Stout

 Also know as Myers Jimmy or Jimmy Midway

One Hundred & One years old today!

Fair Isle & Shetland wishes you Happy Birthday!

The Stout's Family Yoal Boat - Fair Isle - July 19th 2007

Story of Jimmy's Historic Birdwatching

http://fair-isle.blogspot.com/2011/03/living-legend-james-stout-100-years-of.html

Lise Sinclair sings George Mackay Brown's "A Time to Keep"

Lise Sinclair
Musician & Poet

1969 original copy

A Time to Keep and other songs

 Piano / voices / fiddle / guitars / accordion / banjo / mandolin / toy piano / glockenspiel / harmonium / sansula 

 LISE SINCLAIR / INGE THOMSON / BRIAN CROMARTY 

 ÁSTVALDUR TRAUSTASSON / EWEN THOMSON 

 Icelandic translations by A∂ALSTEIN ASBERG SIGUR∂SSON 

 PERFORMANCE DATES: 

 MARCH 2012 

 THURS 8 - St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall 

 FRI 9 - Fair Isle 

 SUN 11 - Town Hall, Lerwick 

 THURS 15 - Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh 

 SAT 17 - Reykjavík, Iceland 

 ALBUMS ON SALE AT ALL PERFORMANCES, AND AVAILABLE RETAIL MARCH 9 

Writer George Mackay Brown - Stromness Orkney - photo attributed to Gunnie Moberg

The stories in George Mackay Brown’s ‘A TIME TO KEEP’ are tales of life in all its small detail, set in the harsh and beautiful landscape of the Northern Isles. They are lit with the author’s precise, poetic touch and the characteristically understated Northern voice. The characters inhabit an unwritten history between the sagas and the 20^th century as if carefully gathered from time itself.

Lise Sinclair is a singer, songwriter and poet of that same landscape and its music and literary traditions — a native of Fair Isle, Britain’s most remote inhabited island, half way between Orkney and Shetland.

Lise has written a series of new songs that will bring the stories out of the book and connect the past with the present and the Northern Isles with Iceland, where George MacKay Brown drew reference and linked the Scottish and Nordic cultures as they are still lived in these Isles. Lise says that it wasn’t so much an idea that presented itself, as she “began to hear these songs on first reading the book, as if they were already there, singing out of George’s clear, lyrical prose.”

The music has been written in collaboration with Icelandic musician and composer, Ástvaldur Traustasson and recorded by a band of musicians from across the North Isles and Iceland, including Lise, Ástvaldur, Inge Thomson, Brian Cromarty, Ewen Thomson and poet and Icelandic translator A∂alstein Asberg Sigur∂sson. The band gathered from the North, in Edinburgh in January to rehearse and record the songs and will be releasing the album and performing the songs at a special series of concerts set to take place in the Isles, Edinburgh and Reyjavík in March 2012, at the end of the Year of Scottish Islands Culture.

The music is a rich tapestry of sound: voices, piano, fiddle, guitars, accordion, mandolin, banjo and harmonium, blending a wealth of tradition with what’s new in Scottish music and Icelandic jazz into songs which are a journey from beginning to end, through time, under wide island skies.

The first performance is on Thursday 8^th March in St Magnus Cathedral in Orkney, a place where George Mackay Brown found inspiration, and where the fusion of Norse and Scottish voices resonates in the very stone. The performances includes Icelandic readings of the lyrics by A∂alstein Asberg Sigur∂sson.

Lise & Monk at work

A Time to Keep has 14 songs, here is the title track, a story of a fisherman-crofter in the elemental story of the islands, featuring the Fair Isle Chapel bell... and The Five of Spades, a tale of an Orkneyman and a gambler who sailed for Nova Scotia, it includes Brian Cromarty singing The Ballad of Check Harra...



   

rehearsing at Heriot Toun, outside Edinburgh

Brian Cromarty, The Orkneyman
& The Resonator

Monk,
Pianoman & Icelander

Lise & Inge  harmonise

The Fair Islanders... Lise, Ewen & Inge.

Ewen Thomson & Inge Thomson
The Fiddler & Queen of Angels

     

Adalsteinn Asberg Sigurdsson, The Translator   

the music & the translations all come together at once

The Resonator & other strings
Photos by Cheryl D. Barnett

video by Liz Musser

 Soponsored by Creative Scotland - Scottish Islands - Scottish Island Writers.  

 Supported by Shetland Arts 

 The Scottish Poetry Library - The Scottish Storytelling Centre. 

& the estate of George Mackay Brown.

Thank you to Loganair for getting us from one island to another to sing.

 MORE ABOUT Lise Sinclair 

Her suite of music, Ivver Entrancin Wis (shetlandmusic 2008) for cello, harp, viola and voice, based on      poetry from Shetland was launched at Celtic Connections with Fiddlers Bid. Other poetry setting projects,  featured poems by James Clerk Maxwell (Orkney Science Festival 2007), ‘Under the Evening Sky’ (2010) for the Scottish Poetry Library and Literature Across Frontiers with performances in Argyll, Edinburgh Book Festival (2008), Reyjavík Literature Festival (2009), and in Vilnius & Riga (2010).

Other recent work includes ‘White Below’ (Hansel Cooperative Press 2010), ‘Empty Ocean’ (Radio 3       2009) and poems on the Shetland crofting landscape in collaboration with artist Tommy Hyndman.

Invitation from Muckle Shetland

Iceland Gull -

Hello from Muckle Shetland,

Events in Shetland are covered by many individuals and bloggers. Recent events like the sensational Aurora Borealis, Up Helly Aa and the continuing Iceland Gull influx have been beautifully photographed with stories well written. As I scurried around the internet looking from blog to facebook to blog, I wondered who's stories I had missed? I thought someone should start a Shetland multi- authored blog. So instead of just thinking about it... I started one! Or I should say it is under development. I have given the "Blog" the provisional name Muckle Shetland Blog. 

The blog has a side bar showing 10 different and active Shetland blogs, but more can and will be added, if you know of others please send me a link? Muckle Shetland Forum has been created and attached to the blog to welcome participation and discussion from all viewers. As I google searched, I found many old or unused Shetland blogs. I suspect they didn't have an large enough audience to inspire further posts. For those people I think this format would be very beneficial, and I hope they would become occasional Muckle Bloggers. Plus will would welcome non- Shetland or visiting Bloggers from all over the world to summit Shetland travel related posts from their blogs. It's simple, once you joined you can copy and paste your existing post from your blog editor to the one here or start a completely new. Post are automatically shared on the Muckle Shetland Facebook page. 

Together we can make Shetland a bit more accessible. Cheers!

To become a contributor send us an email. muckle.shetland@yahoo.co.uk 

Hearts in Nature - Happy Valentine's Day

Hearts in Nature
- all found on Fair Isle in the past year.

For the past 6 years since moving to Fair Isle I have gone for a walk on Valentine's Day with my camera and photographed natural occurring heart shapes. I would Share these images by email or on Facebook with friends & family as a sort of Valentine's Day card. Now with my blog I can share photos with a wider world. No apologies for the puns... it's all part of the fun for me. I did set up the first & last photos, the stone is unaltered as are the rest of the photos. This year I have collected images as I have sporadically seen them though out the year. I hope you enjoy them and please share with your friends. I will still go out on Valentines Day and add a few more images to this post. cheers Tommy

Your love Rocks!

That's a lovely sediment... 

Limpets in Love
The Limpet's constant clinging and sucking slowly causes erosion to the stone.

Limpets really leave a lasting impression.

Love on the rocks

Twisted Seaweed 

I don't just Lichen you... I'm Love'n you!

2 hearts

We got you covered... Lichen or not.

Moss be Love!

Love grows...

Red Admiral Butterfly

Hearts set to flutter.
(8 tiny ones)

Starlings Chicks

Everybody's got a Hungry Heart!

Meadow Pipit

Beak cause you love me! 

Twite

Love Birds                                  

The Biggest Heart! I can find...

Our love will never fade.

Happy Valentine's Day from Fair Isle
& Tommy H. Hyndman