Orkney's short summer is very definitely here. It's warm, the winds are light, and the sky is blue, blue, blue. Time to fly a kite. (Funny fact, Orkney is frequently TOO windy to fly kites, unlike the rest of the UK where the problem can be the opposite one.)
And, of course, time for Olena and Athina to see skies used peacefully.
So off we went to the fourth Churchill barrier, where there is a wide beach to let some of these nice, quiet devices paint some pretty colours in the sky.
We had to avoid some of the areas of tall seagrass as in early summer they are used by arctic terns as a nesting ground. The children of the Hope primary school put up special signs to warn us of the parts we should avoid. Terns are a lovely kind of gull with really aerodynamic lines. See here in English and here in Russian.
Photo by Bengt Nyman - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49063896
However, we were there to fly kites. Like this delta
or this sled kite:
and finally, the one that is Arthur's and my favourite, the historical Cody box kite. See here for its story (Russian here).
It's quite a big beast but flies beautifully:
Of course we put it up much higher than this.
PS (with thanks to Mike Hoy)
Okay, here’s the correct tern, a Little Tern, (Rus) still aerodynamic as hell
Little Tern (Sternula albifrons), Little Swanport, Tasmania, Australia
Photo by JJ Harrison (https://www.jjharrison.com.au/) CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons