CALL OF THE WILD
Cal Flyn heads south from Orkney to uninhabited Swona to investigate the island’s feral cattle and marvel at its desolate beauty
Wildlife correspondent Cal Flyn takes a trip to uninhabited Swona to investigate the lives of the island's feral cattle
From John O’Groats, stand on the shore and look north across the water. Across the Pentland Firth, you will see two small islands between the mainland and Orkney: Stroma and Swona. Both stand empty now of residents – or emptied of their human residents at least. Stroma, once populated by more than 350, has been deserted since the 1960s, and its black-eyed buildings stand in sentinel until their return. Its owners, the Simpson family of Caithness, still keep sheep there – shipping them back and forth to market.
Swona, the smaller of the two, closer to Orkney, has lain empty since the last members of the Rosie family departed in 1974 – for years before, two brothers and a sister had lived there alone in the house they grew up in, Rose Cottage, keeping their cattle amid the abandoned houses of their former neighbours.
When those siblings finally left their island home due to ill health – travelling to nearby Orkney to live with family – they left the cattle behind, setting them loose to graze the grassy sward and find shelter in the ruined buildings. They have been living there wild ever since.
I travelled to the island in the summer of 2018 as part of research into Islands of Abandonment, my new book about how nature reclaims abandoned places. I was interested in the cattle’s survival: how they get by in the wild winters without supplementary feeding, and how they behave when there is no one there to see them.
Hamish Mowatt, a local boatman, brought me to the island, leaving me there for a solo overnight stay. I found the feral cattle of Swona grazing peacefully on Keefa Hill, at the centre of the 100-hectare island. I counted 15 of them then through my binoculars, including two calves – although it was hard to be certain; the cattle, now used to having the island to themselves, are wary of humans – and liable to charge if approached. As soon as they became aware of my presence, they disappeared over the brow of the hill.
The behaviour and genetics of these cattle, who have now lived feral on the island for approximately ten generations, and were recognised as a new breed in 1999, are of great interest to researchers. Stephen Hall, emeritus professor of animal science, stayed on the island to observe the cattle’s behaviour in the 1980s, and the resulting paper – recording their unusual behaviour – has since been cited by scientists in the fields of landscape ecology and conservation.
Cyril Annal, whose mother Eva grew up on Swona, tells me there are now 18 animals in the herd. ‘They’re pretty wild,’ he tells me. His family, farmers on the neighbouring island of South Ronaldsay, inherited Swona but say it doesn’t make economic sense to work it. ‘It’s very costly to get people to the
island,’ Cyril explains. ‘To round up the cattle you’d need five or six farmers, and really fit ones, not old crops like me.’
After years fending for themselves, the cattle are not easy to manage. Early attempts to herd the feral cattle onto boats took hours, and sometimes ended in injuries. ‘I remember one clearing me off the top of a wall 8ft high,’ Cyril recalls. Other times animals broke legs in panic. Since then, the Annals have opted to leave the cattle where they are. ‘If I went and lived there for six months maybe they’d be eating out of my hand by the end,’ says Cyril. ‘But that’s the last thing I want to do.’
I can see where he’s coming from. Though the island is wonderfully peaceful and – in early summer, when I visited – bright with wildflowers and busy with breeding seabirds, it has an eerie, desolate atmosphere. Rose Cottage, the Rosie family’s former home, was partly boarded up to prevent cattle and seals getting in and becoming trapped. But the kitchen was accessible, and I found a kettle on the stove and a Press and Journal announcing Harold Wilson’s election victory in March 1974 still sitting on the dining table. The air inside was cold and musty. Plaster was coming away from the walls and I could see through a lattice of beams into an upstairs bedroom. Mud had flowed under the door and into the ground floor which, unnervingly, had preserved footprints of another lone visitor from an earlier, unspecified time.
Rose Cottage, like most of the buildings on Swona, is in a state of advanced decay, but I camped overnight inside a handsome stone-built building in the north of the island, keeping an eye on the cattle through warped window panes. It was just before the summer solstice, and it hardly got dark. I lay awake in my sleeping bag listening to birds moving around in the roof-space above me.
Outside, seabirds were busy with their chicks, and wrens and sparrows flitted to and from nests in the ruinous walls. Swona was unmistakeably a wild place. When I left the house to tour the island on foot – a gentle walk that should normally take around three hours – I found my way barred in almost all directions. Arctic terns had taken up residence in the rocky northern headland, and took screaming to the air, slashing at my head and shoulders, when I stumbled close to their colony. Beating a quick retreat, I unwittingly passed into the territory of the great skuas, who bounded towards me threateningly, puffing out their barrel chests.
I fled to the grassy cliffs of the east, where the puffins at least didn’t seem to mind me being there. They hopped by, carrying sand eels to their burrows, quite unconcerned by my presence. But for the piercing alarm calls of the oyster catchers and the military-style fly-bys by the fulmars it was almost peaceful.
The lesson? Humans may have left, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t intruding. After a while in the comforting company of
“Attempts to herd feral cattle onto boats took hours
puffins, I returned to my safe haven to await my boat home, making sure to skirt the cows as I did so.
The cattle’s grazing habits on Swona are thought to be the key to the island’s wonderful floral diversity, which has earned it ‘site of special scientific interest’ status. While I was there, thousands of orchids stood proud from the closecropped heath. Rare forms of eyebright, oysterplant and pond weeds also grow there. It is beautiful, and bursting with life.
Still, when Hamish returned for me after 24 hours I left the animals there on Swona with sadness, but also some relief. Isolation of such an extreme nature was a strange and intense experience. I’m glad I’ve been there and experienced it. But I’m equally glad to have come home.
If you would like to visit Swona, more information about the island’s history and guidance on how to get there safely can be found on the
Swona Heritage Trust website (www. swona.net), which was set up by Cyril’s son William Annal. Sea kayakers should beware of strong currents and dangerous tidal races. Cal Flyn’s book Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape is out now. Published by William Collins, £16.99.