Ontelly

Sunday Feature - Rona

Logo for Sunday Feature - Rona

Rona: Scottish poet and writer Kathleen Jamie joins a research expedition to the tiny uninhabited island of North Rona - 45 miles out into the Atlantic Ocean west of Cape Wrath in Sutherland. She observes and assists with seabird surveys - especially counting the rare and mysterious Leach's Petrel - and archaeologists mapping the island's 8th-century early Celtic Christian buildings. While a family party of killer whales circles the cliffs of Rona - the adults teaching their calves to catch seals - Kathleen thinks about ideas of remoteness and isolation surrounded by thousands of puffins and a herd of grumpy sheep.