The Shetlands - Part 3

So off to Fetlar today so back down to get a Ferry from Belmont.

We headed straight down to the Loch/Lake where the Phalarope hang out, but today they were deciding to hang out somewhere else! It was a good job we had a sighting on Unst yesterday as I would have been so disappointed as this was one of our must sees for the trip.

However all was not lost, we had great Red-throated Diver views and as this was a species that we had never had good sightings of we were well pleased, I'm disappointed with the photos though!

We walked down to the hide on the RSPB bit to see if any Phalarope were visible from there but again no luck, we did have some good Snipe sightings though:

and Redshank:

This Curlew gave me a chance with an in flight shot:

From the hide we also saw some Wigeon and Teal which was nice. So after giving up on the Phalarope we headed back to the lake and the buses, where a Wheatear gave another photo opportunity:

We popped up to the Cafe for a hot chocolate at:

After being suitably refreshed we popped along to Fetlar Airstrip for some Whimbrel action!!

and a bit of Arctic Skua romance:

followed by some more Golden Plover:

Hugh brought out the big guns here, so there are some much closer views on the Shetland Wildlife Facebook Pages. So back to the ferry and onto Unst, we did stop off at a couple of places looking for Otters, but again no luck, I did get some distant Red-throated Diver action:

and some in flight Arctic Skua pics:

We headed back to the Hotel and dinner.
It's easy to forget the more common birds when seeing all this great stuff, so let's not forget our garden birds, so here's a Blackbird busy collecting food in the Hotel grounds:

After dinner we went for a walk down to the harbour at Baltasound on our own private Otter hunt, but sadly to no avail, we did find some roosting Fulmars though:

Decided that I'm saving the Bonxies for part 4!