These are some of the seaweed-eating sheep of North Rondaldsay mentioned in the last posting. Flocks are owned by islanders, kept for their wool and meat. They are restricted to the beach area by a thirteen kilometer stone wall (dyke), built around the whole island, where they graze on the abundant seaweed washed ashore in storms; this apparently gives the flesh a characteristic taste. Only at lambing time are the ewes brought into the fields to graze on richer feed.The sheep are thought to have been on the island for thousands of years and are a pure strain of the ancient Neolithic Soay variety. They are quite small and have a wild playful look about them, a bit like goats, and coarse wool in a range of colours. The ewes all lamb within a few days of each other (these were due to lamb within a few weeks), a sign of their close genetic ties and unbroken line of descent. The images show their squat little bodies and skinny legs and the wonderful shades of their wool - they look as ancient and at home as the granite lichen-covered rocks.
Many animal owners on Orkney islands and on Shetland keep their stock inside great barns from about November until March, but the North Ron farmers I spoke to were disdainful of this practice. The seaweed-eating sheep stay in the wild all year round, as apparently do the beautiful Aberdeen Angus cattle that are also kept on the island. The conditions, I gather are a bit tempered by the Gulf Stream.
It is an interesting experience to follow sheep tracks in the sand and glimpse sheep in the shallows and amongst the rock pools, as if they are going surfing, and to see them scampering away along a sandy beach, and clambering like goats up rocky cliffs.
The third image shows their field at the top of a cliff, with the vast North Sea stretching away forever in the background.
