Shame on me, only one new Marilyn in 2009. Mind you, I also collect countries, islands and rare birds. My hill days also include easy rock climbing, botanising and fungus-foraying.
Bird-haunted Noss Head in Shetland, recently featured on TV by Simon King, was the summit of the year. I dragged my 76-year-old arthritic limbs through a colony of dive-bombing bonxies to its atmospheric summit with its splendid seascape. Gannets galore, kittiwakes, gulls, guillemots and razorbills put on a five-star show around the cliffs. My many repeats included Ward Hill on Fair Isle, the site of a military base in the second world war. After the war the topmost buildings were blown up, and the bagger now has to suffer a Haiti-like tangle of collapsed concrete. It doesn't take long to find the old gun emplacements. Other summit furniture includes an abandoned cooking range. The only other life on the summit was one of Fair Isle's distinctive black rabbits, with brown ears, and a pair of nesting oystercatchers (AD: Ward Hill summit is the only place I have ever seen a whimbrel). Incidentally, Ward Hill is slightly higher than quoted in RHB, as a cairn of small concrete blocks (what else?) marks a higher point a few metres away. The old Bird Observatory has now been demolished and a brand spanking new one now welcomes us.
