People attending the four public meetings about the Viking Energy windfarm next week should turn up ready to voice their views. The events organised by Shetland Islands Council will simply involve recording what people want to say.

Amid all the furore over the environmental benefits or otherwise of Viking Energy’s windfarm, a lower key and significantly less contentious project is ambitiously seeking to reduce Shetland’s carbon emissions by 28,000 tonnes over the next two years – the equivalent of taking 10,555 cars off the road.

The puffins at Sumburgh Head have made a surprise return after a baffling early departure from the cliffs last week.

So far the seabird breeding season in Shetland has been good, with even Arctic terns fledging young. After the disastrous breeding success of recent years, this is welcome news.

I’m finding it hard to concentrate just now. The Shetland Field Studies Group found an unidentified non-flying object on last Sunday’s walk which looked tantalisingly like a Viking longhouse site and I can’t wait to get it verified – or otherwise, as the case may be.

It’s happened at last … I’ve managed to get killer whale on the garden list! In the past 20 years, to my know­ledge, only two pods have been in, both when I was somewhere else.

Running out of space is a chronic complaint in even the largest of gardens, and I have decided to apply William Morris’s house rules, with a twist to my garden: have nothing in your garden that you don’t know to be useful or think beautiful.

The second Shetland Nature Festival has come and gone, though unfortunately the weather caused it to finish with a whimper rather than a bang, when the all-day North Isles Nature Cruise, organised by Brydon Thomason of Shetland Nature, had to be called off due to a poor forecast.

It is interesting to see how much things change from year to year.

A black guillemot, more commonly known as a tystie, in smart summer plumage is a familiar sight through­out Shetland.

WEATHER OUTLOOK FOR SHETLAND

Thursday, 29 July 2010 at 11:25

HEADLINES

TODAY: PATCHY DRIZZLE, BRIGHTER SPELLS
TONIGHT: CLOUDY, SOME DRIZZLE
TOMORROW: SOME BRIGHTNESS, RAIN LATER
DAYS 2-5: RAIN THEN SCATTERED SHOWERS
DAYS 6-10: CHANGEABLE

What’s on in Shetland in July 2010

What’s on in Shetland in August 2010 and on