High Bird’s View + Adrift Event - Sunday 23rd February 2025 at the Kelp Store, Papa Westray

Drone footage of Papay by Jonathan Ford and the launch of Adrift publication - a printed collaboration with Dr Saoirse Higgins and the Papay community, under the banner of ØY Festival, Papa Westray. The Adrift publication was funded by the North Isles Landscape Partnership Scheme.

I was happy to have an excuse to visit the north island of Papa Westray (Papay) for Jonathan Ford’s event at the Kelp Store. Having personal connections to the island myself, it is always a pleasure to visit there. Thankfully the weather was reasonably good on my flight to and from Papay. Being on a small 8 seater plane is fun to me, you get such great views of the islands on the way as they fly quite low. The pilots are amazing with the challenging weather here especially in winter, but we can get high winds at any time of year! The flight only took about 15 minutes as it was direct. However it usually goes via the island of Westray then onto Papay, which is the shortest scheduled passenger flight and only takes about a minute and a half.

Jonathan’s event started with him showing some of the drone images that he had taken of the island projected onto a large screen. He has used his drone at different times of the year and looked at the contrasts this created, but found that winter is the best time to get the most dramatic shots. This is also the best time to not disturb any birds in the process.

His images of the island covered in various degrees of snow and ice was particularly fascinating. There was an otherworldly look, a stillness, about them. Interestingly sometimes it was very difficult to get an idea of scale. Some of the icy shots looked microscopic, a strange contrast from the size of the image and landscape. The ice making beautiful patterns on the water, the delicate beauty of mother nature in the harshness of winter.

A lot of his images were focused on looking straight down onto the landscape, rather than panning out to take in a side view. When he did do this, in order to be able to get all of the island in the shot the drone had to be sent about 1.5 km away, a nerve-wracking distance. Thankfully the drone did return!

Jonathan then moved on to some drone video footage which showed the movement of the sea along the coast, the power of the tides. When scanning along the coast, the rock formations and cliff erosion was very noticeable. A particular section that Jonathan focused on was where the last Great Auk was shot in 1896.

The footage shows up far more of the landscape than is visible from the ground, obvious archaeology shapes appear, burnt mounds and possible buildings, dykes that extend past the shoreline. In another, a group of birds bobbing on the sea looked like dodgems bumping into each other! A further image shows black round dots, the remaining shell holes of the British artillery practice before the D-Day landings.

The Holm of Aikerness is somewhere that I wasn’t really aware of, it consists of three islet strips between Westray and Papa Westray. I have discovered parts of the land and sea that are rarely seen in this way. I found myself in awe of the beauty of the island, and mother nature. As an artist I find maps and geophysics images fascinating so viewing Jonathan’s work was very inspiring to me.

If you would like to see some of Jonathan’s drone footage yourself please visit https://www.youtube.com/@papayranger.

Please go to www.facebook.com/papayranger for details on how to purchase the Adrift publication.