Papa Westray warden Sarah West and I went along to the annual sailing regatta on the island on Westray, setting up an RSPB table (hastily constructed from fish boxes) on the pier and talking to local people and tourists about bird and wildlife on the island. This year, Westray is the area where where the largest number of corncrakes (12) have been found in Orkney, so it was a good chance to talk about how special the island is and what species are thriving there. My map showing the locations of corncrakes drew interest, with people telling us which birds they had heard themselves or finding out where they could go and listen for one over the next few nights.
We also ran a competition to guess the number of pairs of gannets nesting on Noup Cliffs and had guesses ranging from 25 to 40,000! The correct answer is 623 nesting pairs. Gannets only began nesting on Westray in 2003 when there were just three pairs, only one of which successfully raised young that year. Numbers have been rapidly increasing each year since. We made gannet masks and puffin 'wrist flappers' with children, providing something for them to do while waiting for the sailing boats to return to the pier. At the end of the day, boats we loaded onto the car deck on the MV Sigurd to return to Kirkwall.