I am glad you enjoyed the lichen – I have also been very taken with it, and thought I’d show you a few more photos. Sumburgh Head is a place with a lot to look at: there is the focal point of the lighthouse built by Robert Louis Stevenson’s grandfather; the cliffs are alive with the sights and sounds of seabirds (just imagine it at puffin time!); to the West, there is a fine view of Jarlshof’s mysterious outline; and Fair Isle shimmers distantly on the Southern horizon.
It is a place for looking far-away, but what is near-to is just as arresting. I became interested in the foghorn . . .
. . . and the pleasing effects of the weather on its paintwork.
while I was photographing rust, Tom noticed the lichen on the foghorn wall.
These swirls could seem inscrutably runic, but as I understand it, they are just a simple radial growth pattern, that can be used to measure age in much the same manner as the rings of a tree.
I love lichen: its crazy, luminous colours; its fluttering petal-like formations; the way it stoically turns its face to the North. It flourishes in the clean air of wild, exposed places, and is one of those organisms that illustrates how things of incredible delicacy and beauty can emerge out of a landscape that might initially seem quite harsh and unforgiving.
. . . like a lot of things on Shetland, really.
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