A male sperm whale was washed up at Tuquoy in Westray on Friday – the third whale beaching in the county in recent weeks.

The discovery of the 40-foot animal follows the recent sighting of a school of sperm whales off Sanday.

The pictures were sent to The Orcadian by Lyn Jarvis, who said the animal washed in on the tide on Friday.

A new exhibition of prints opened at the Orkney Museum on Saturday.

Soulisquoy Printmakers, New and Recent Prints takes in a wide range of styles by local printmakers.

Chairwoman, Carol Dunbar, said: “At the start of our 25th anniversary year we are delighted to have this opportunity to show a selection of work at the Orkney Museum.

“The overall aim of the project is to raise awareness of the workshop and to encourage more printmaking activity to take place in the studio, based at the Pickaquoy Centre.”

Seerad’s proposed meeting to explain sheep identification requirements has been rescheduled for 7.30pm on Tuesday, March 6, in the Ayre Hotel.

The department wants to make sure keepers understand the sheep and goat identification and tracing system and what they must to do comply.

European auditors in the UK this month are looking at the system, including on-farm checks. If the standards are not high enough, the 

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has confirmed it is carrying out an investigation following an accident at the Orkney Fishermen’s Society processing facility in Stromness.

A male employee was flown to hospital in Aberdeen last Friday after sustaining a serious injury to his hand while working with an item of processing machinery.

The matter was subsequently reported to the HSE by the OFS management.

Islands councillors have given their backing to the second phase of a housing development off Kirkwall’s Wellington Street.

Now is the time to have your say on the design to be adopted for Orkney’s new community flag.

Orkney Islands Council has identified five options for the flag, and is asking the public to identify the design they prefer.

Survey forms can be downloaded from the OIC website or picked up at the council’s customer services.

Orkney schools are to share a £100,791 cash boost from the Scottish Executive to promote healthy eating.

Part of a £5 million package announced by Education Minister Hugh Henry, the extra money can be used to buy resources to teach pupils about healthy eating, promote healthy school meals or train staff about teaching health issues.

Orkney Islands Council topped all other Scottish councils in 10 of the 78 statutory performance indicators for 2005-06. It was bottom in none.

Areas ranked number one included privacy in care homes, completion of social enquiry reports for the courts, speed of dealing with children under supervision orders, council tax collection, settling noise complaints and roading quality.

The worst performances included delays with planning applications and trading standards inspections and the cost of refuse collection.

Staffing problems and the cost of transporting refuse in an island community affected these, Wednesday ’s meeting of the monitoring and audit committee were told.

Cow breeding strategies was the focus of the latest Farming for the Future day in Holm on Thursday.

Focusing on the farms of Stratheast and Netherton, the sessions covered research and development, advantages and disadvantages of pure- bred herds and cross-breeding, cow size, replacements, desirable traits and the markets.

The event, organised by NFU Scotland and the Scottish Agricultural College, is funded through SAC, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and European Structural Funds.

Nursery provision at two Orkney schools has received the thumbs up from the HMIE.

The nurseries at the North Walls and Sanday schools have received excellent inspection reports.

The reports, published yesterday, confirms the view of Orkney Islands Council that all aspects of provision are very good or good.

A man appeared from custody at Kirkwall Sheriff Court on Wednesday after demanding money from a Kirkwall bank.

Norman Wood, 38, Gunn's Close, Kirkwall, had entered the Royal Bank of Scotland at 1.35pm yesterday, claiming that he had a gun and stating it was a robbery.

A restriction of liberty order was imposed and sentence deferred until February 22.

A planning application for a locally-owned wind turbine to be located on the Birsay Moor, just north of Dounby, has been lodged with the OIC.

The application, by David Clouston Wallace from Holodyke, Dounby, proposes a single 2MW turbine that will feed renewable energy straight into the grid at Dounby and serve 1,300 households.

A public meeting on the proposal last year reflected a generally favourable attitude to the proposal with little opposition being voiced.

OIC workmen had to spread sand on the streets of Stromness on Wednesday morning after a " substantial" spill of diesel.

Officials from SEPA were contacted as has the Harbours Department in case of any run-off into the sea.

An OIC spokesman said it was not yet known what sort of vehicle had caused the incident.

Jim Wallace MSP is continuing to press Orkney’s case for support for elderly care services with further representations to the deputy health minister, Lewis Macdonald.

He raised the issue at Question Time in the Scottish Parliament on Thursday.

Mr Wallace said, “I will be pressing the Minister to take forward a joint pilot project. I will also remind the Minister that, with a growing elderly population, Orkney Islands Council faces real problems funding their care and that the Scottish Executive formula for funding needs to be revised to take this properly into account.”

The remains of a Fin whale, which washed ashore at Duncan’s Geo, Brims, Hoy, is pictured.

Discovered by Angus Budge of Longhope, the 14.5 metre long animal was a female that is thought to have been dead for some time. The carcass probably drifted to Orkney in the recent spell of strong westerly winds.

Development projects in Orkney are to get a funding boost with the allocation of £15,000 through HIE Orkney.

The money, £8,500 of European funding and £6,500 Network funding, will be managed by HIE Orkney in partnership with the Orkney Islands Council to provide support for the production and delivery of development plans for islands which want to follow the Initiative at the Edge model.

The funding approvals for January also include £1,675 to be used by Careers Scotland to train community guidance staff, while the Hilton Farmhouse bed-and-breakfast business, in Shapinsay, has been awarded £8,750 towards upgrading the restaurant.

The Wick stop on Loganair’s flights to and from Orkney will cease from the end of March.

The company is introducing new dedicated flights between Edinburgh and Wick, which means all flights between Edinburgh and Kirkwall will now be non-stop. This will increase the capacity for Orkney and Caithness passengers.

This summer’s timetable, which comes into effect from March 25, includes four flights daily to Aberdeen and double daily services to Inverness and Shetland.

A dismantled smoke alarm has been blamed for the severity of a house fire in Stromness on Sunday.

Two fire appliances from Stromness were sent to Dundas Street in the town at 4.50pm after an explosion and smoke was seen billowing from the two-bedroom flat.

Station officer, Paul Hounslow, said the source of the fire was believed to be a two-seater sofa, possibly started by a discarded cigarette.

The couple who lived in the property, which was badly damaged by heat and smoke, were out at the time.

The world’s first commercial ship-to-ship transfer of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) at anchor has been hailed a "great success".

133,000 cubic metres of LNG was transferred between the vessels Excalibur and Excelsior (pictured) in Scapa Flow. The operation began on Thursday morning and was completed late on Friday night.

The operation marks the first commercial transfer of its kind anywhere in the world and could herald a new dawn for ship-to-ship transfers in Orkney.

There is now the possibility of regular transfers of LNG, which could make up to £500,000 per annum for the OIC.

A special event was held in Kirkwall on Monday to promote healthy living.

Organised by Stromness Academy’s OKNY Young Enterprise Company, the “Commonhealth Games” allowed people try out a variety of different sports and find out more about the activities available in the county.

Healthy eating also featured at the event at the Pickaquoy Centre, with local food companies on hand to show off products which taste great but won’t increase the waistline.

Isles MSP, Jim Wallace, officially opened the event.

Click here for more details

The present owners of the Three Graces have confirmed that the Faith, Hope and Charity statues will not be sold at auction, alongside hundreds of other items from the Graemeshall collection in Holm.

Debbie Norquay confirmed that it is looking very likely that Highland Council would be purchasing the statues.