The Calf of Eday ( sco, Cauf o Aidee; non, Kalfr
[) is an uninhabited island in ]Orkney
Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...
, Scotland, lying north east of Eday
Eday (, sco, Aidee) is one of the islands of Orkney, which are located to the north of the Scottish mainland. One of the North Isles, Eday is about from the Orkney Mainland. With an area of , it is the ninth-largest island of the archipelago. ...
. It is known for its wildlife and its prehistoric ruins.
History
There is a Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
chambered cairn
A chambered cairn is a burial monument, usually constructed during the Neolithic, consisting of a sizeable (usually stone) chamber around and over which a cairn of stones was constructed. Some chambered cairns are also passage-graves. They are fo ...
in the southwest overlooking Calf Sound, which separates the island from Eday. Rectangular in shape, the cairn was excavated in 1936–37 and contains a small chamber with two compartments and a larger one with four stalls that has a separate entrance and was probably added at a later date. Two similar structures have been identified nearby along with various other ancient ruins.[
From the 17th to the 19th centuries, the Calf of Eday was home to a ]salt
Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...
works, the remains of which can still be seen to the north of cairns.[
The pirate ]John Gow
John Gow (c. 1698–11 June 1725) was a notorious pirate whose short career was immortalised by Charles Johnson in the 1725 work ''The History and Lives of All the Most Notorious Pirates and Their Crews''. Little is known of his life, except f ...
and his men successfully raided the Hall of Clestrain
The Hall of Clestrain is a house in the parish of Orphir, Orkney, Scotland. The house was the birthplace of the explorer John Rae in 1813. Currently derelict, the house became a listed building in 1971. It featured in the second series of ...
on 10 February 1725, but when they attempted to attack Carrick House on Eday, they ran aground on the Calf of Eday, where they were captured.
Etymology
The Norse gave animal names to some islands, especially to small islands alongside a larger one, other examples being the Calf of Man
Calf of Man ( gv, Yn Cholloo ) is a island, off the southwest coast of the Isle of Man. It is separated from the Isle of Man by a narrow stretch of water called the Calf Sound. Like the nearby rocky islets of Chicken Rock and Kitterland, it is ...
and the Horse of Copinsay
The Horse of Copinsay, also known as the Horse, is a rectangular uninhabited sea stack to the north east of Copinsay in the Orkney Islands, Scotland.
Name
The Norse were fond of zoomorphising smaller islands - for example, smaller islands lyi ...
. The islands name in Norse times was thus ''Kalfr''.[ "Eday" is a name derived from the ]Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...
''eið'' and means "isthmus
An isthmus (; ; ) is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea counterpart of an isthmu ...
island".[Waugh (2010) p. 550]
In the 17th century Eday was also known as "Heth Øy" and the Calf's name is recorded by Blaeu Blaeu is the name of
* Willem Blaeu (1571–1638), Dutch cartographer and father of Joan Blaeu
* Joan Blaeu (1596–1673), Dutch cartographer and son of Willem Blaeu
* '' Blaeu Atlas of Scotland'', by Joan Blaeu, published in 1654
* ''Atlas Blaeu'' ...
as "Calf of Heth Øy".
Wildlife
The dominant vegetation on the island is dry dwarf-shrub heath dominated by Heather (''Calluna vulgaris''), with smaller areas of wet heath, semi-improved grassland and coastal grassland. The Calf of Eday supports 32 species of breeding birds and is designated as a Special Protection Area
A Special Protection Area (SPA) is a designation under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. Under the Directive, Member States of the European Union (EU) have a duty to safeguard the habitats of migratory birds and cert ...
(SPA) for its importance as a nesting area. Gulls and Cormorant
Phalacrocoracidae is a family of approximately 40 species of aquatic birds commonly known as cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the family have been proposed, but in 2021 the IOC adopted a consensus taxonomy of seven ge ...
(''Phalacrocorax carbo'') nest in the dry heath and grassland areas, whilst Fulmar
The fulmars are tubenosed seabirds of the family Procellariidae. The family consists of two extant species and two extinct fossil species from the Miocene.
Fulmars superficially resemble gulls, but are readily distinguished by their flight on ...
(''Fulmarus glacialis''), Kittiwake
The kittiwakes (genus ''Rissa'') are two closely related seabird species in the gull family Laridae, the black-legged kittiwake (''Rissa tridactyla'') and the red-legged kittiwake (''Rissa brevirostris''). The epithets "black-legged" and "red-le ...
(''Rissa tridactyla'') and auk
An auk or alcid is a bird of the family Alcidae in the order Charadriiformes. The alcid family includes the murres, guillemots, auklets, puffins, and murrelets. The word "auk" is derived from Icelandic ''álka'', from Old Norse ''alka'' (a ...
s nest on the cliffs.
See also
* Calf of Flotta
The Calf of Flotta is a small island in Scapa Flow, Orkney. The Calf is next to Flotta, with "Calf" deriving from Old Norse/Norn and meaning a smaller island by a larger one.
Geography and geology
The Calf is made of red sandstone
Sandsto ...
Notes
References
*
*
* Irvine, James M. (ed.) (2006) ''The Orkneys and Schetland in Blaeu's Atlas Novus of 1654''. Ashtead. James M. Irvine.
* Noble, Gordon (2006) ''Neolithic Scotland: Timber, Stone, Earth and Fire.'' Edinburgh University Press.
* Waugh, Doreen, "On ''eið''-names in Orkney and other North Atlantic islands" in Sheehan, John and Ó Corráin, Donnchadh (2010) ''The Viking Age: Ireland and the West''. Proceedings of the Fifteenth Viking Congress. Dublin. Four Courts Press.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Calf Of Eday
Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Orkney
Calves (islands)
Uninhabited islands of Orkney