Reviews / Seabirds and Seals: a unique piece of work by someone ‘who really knows his stuff’
“Coming to Shetland and not visiting Noss is like going to Egypt and not seeing the Pyramids” is an advertising slogan created by Jonathan Wills that will remain etched in my mind forever.
It is now 33 years since I took my first trip to Noss with Jonathan as a guide for my business Shetland Wildlife, writes Hugh Harrop.
A quick calculation based on our 25 years of partnership for our trips to Noss meant I personally amassed over 100 voyages with him on Dunter I, Dunter II and Dunter III. So much so that reviewing this book didn’t feel like homework but more a trip down memory lane.
If you ever sailed with Jonathan – originally trading as Bressaboats and then trading as Seabirds and Seals – then you’ll know his trips ranked as one of the most innovative and informative of their kind.
His knowledge of everything from microscopic zooplankton to the making of a 181-metre-high cliff was off the scale and if you remembered five per cent of the ‘factoids’ on a trip, you were doing well. Think of it like this – you would have been absorbing five per cent of the information, but Jonathan would have been delivering only around 10 per cent of his knowledge!
That explains why every trip was different and why on every trip I jumped ashore at the Bressa’ slip. I’d learned something new – and I’ve learned even more as I have delved in between the covers of this book over the past month. It’s a ‘master script’ of a three-hour cruise – but so much more. A lot, lot more.
In it you will learn about the human and natural history of the islands of Bressay and Noss – their evolution, their geology their ecology. Why did the sea-level rise by over 100 metres, starting 15,000 years ago? What does it feel like to be a gannet? How do puffins keep warm and dry in the cold and wet? And does the plankton really make over half our oxygen?
The questions and the answers are all here and you’ll be swept through exactly 100 ‘Points of Interest’ over the course of 145 pages starting in Lerwick and visiting places like Elvis Voe, Da Cletters, Fladdicap, the Noup, the Giants Leg and the Orkneyman’s Cave.
Do I recommend it? Absolutely. It is unique and the work of somebody who really knows his stuff. It’s lavishly illustrated, full of facts and anecdotes and took 85,000 miles to write without sailing more than three miles from Victoria Pier in Lerwick.
If you’ve never been to Noss, buy it to find out what you’re missing. If you’ve been to Noss with Jonathan, buy it for the memory. And finally, if you’ve been to Noss since ‘Willsy’ retired, buy it for what your tour guide wouldn’t have told you.
The launch of a new, enlarged and updated edition of Seabirds and Seals: Stories from 25 years of wildlife guiding around the Shetland Islands of Bressay and Noss by Jonathan Wills will be hosted by Shetland Library in the Shetland Museum and Archive on 18 November at 7pm. There will be a slideshow and light refreshments.
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