Shetland - Red Necked Phalarope!

 Apart from the Puffins the diminutive Red-necked Phalarope was a bird we hoped to see, and the possibly the best chance to see it, was to go up to RSPB Fetlar. Now this is a double ferry hop from where we were staying, so it would take a least a couple of hours to get there. So we planned a long day out for later in the week, but after yesterdays long  sleepless day, we decided to stay local down south mainland for our first full day and do some exploring.

We headed south and cut across to head to the west coast, we had only been driving up the single track road for a couple of minutes when we saw a car pulled over by a Lochan with a rather large lens sticking out pointing at the Lochan. So we pulled up behind and saw no less than three Red-necked Phalaropes on the water:

Making more Phalaropes!

So we decided our trip to Fetlar was definitely off!

Now for a geography lesson. This is a Tombolo

at St Ninians on the west side of the Mainland

Gorgeous spot, but again the wind was ferocious when we got out of the car, definitely not conducive to walking far!

Next day we went exploring north west, this was at Hamnavoe Harbour:

Another visit to "our" phalaropes!

Dunlin,

Red-throated Diver,

 and Common Gull were some other phot opportunities on our travels so far.

I think I'll leave it there for now. I will do another post but it wont be for a week or so....

Shetland - A Good Start

 So after an overnight crossing from Orkney we arrived at 7am in Lerwick and were off the ferry by 7.15. We had found a cafe in Lerwick that opened at 8, so we went there for breakfast, we couldn't believe the queue, it was a 'proper cafe' and the breakfast was great. As we couldn't get into our AirBnB until 3pm and it was only 30 minutes away we decided to go down to Sumburgh Head and do a bit of refamiliarisation,  as it was 10 years since our last visit, almost to the day. I also have to admit that we were really tired, we didn't get much sleep on the ferry and we had a nap in the car down at Grutness.

Of course the wind was decidedly 'up' so the birds were keeping a low profile. But a Wheatear showed for a while.

A view of the lighthouse and visitor centre.

The cliffs at the bottom revealed:

Gannets passing by,

Plenty of Guillemot

and Fulmar

with the odd Razorbill hidden among them.

But the stars of the show are the Puffins, although there weren't that many out of their burrows:

Too windy for this one!

 Great Skua (Bonxie) sailed past as well, shame I wasn't quick enough to get a decent photo

but the Fulmars will always put on a show!

So a really good start to Shetland and we still hadn't got to our digs yet!

More From Orkney

 Here's more from Orkney...

The causeway at Birsay to the Brough of Birsay

and  believe it or not these were used for storing boats hauled up from the beach below.

Red Throated Divers at RSPB Birsay Moors

There were always plenty of Greylag Geese about

as well as Curlew.

Wherever we went there was always marvellous scenery. 

Oystercatcher with chick

Plenty of Orchards up at RSPB Cottascarth

as well as Wheatear

and calling Curlew.

From the hide at Cottascarth on the opposite hillside, there were a pair of Hen Harries nesting, we visited a few times and were lucky to see the male bringing food in and the female coming up out of the nest in the heather and catching his offerings as he flew over. They were probably keeping it low as the wind was ferocious at times.

This is the nearest the male came to us, so even with a 500mm lens and cropping the photo, he still shows up quite small!

Not too far from the RSPB sites was the Broch of Gurness, well worth a visit.

So not too many bird photos from Orkney, we saw loads but mostly rubbish photos due to distance and weather. We did see 71 different species of birds as well as Brown Hare and Rabbits.

So it was on to Kirkwall and the overnight ferry to Shetland.....................

On Our Travels Again - Orkney

 Off we go again.....

We started a two week holiday by driving up to Scrabster to get the evening ferry to Stromness on Orkney Mainland. It was nine years since our last visit, when we went in February for a slim chance of seeing the Northern Lights, which we didn't! But the birding was good as we remember.

For the whole 8 days on Orkney the wind was  shall we say 'keen' to put it mildly, lots of showers, that we mostly managed to avoid, but thankfully there were 4 hides not too far from out digs in St. Mary's to take shelter in. (3 RSPB and 1 Community hide)

So we started the next day by visiting The Loons RSPB.....

Some Mute Swans posing nicely in front of the Loons hide.

The hide at the Loons overlooks some pools, but the main action is further away, where Lapwing, Curlew, Redshank, Godwit and Snipe are nesting and foraging in the boggy meadows and reeds. I think I have some shots from later in the week. Distant Hare were seen in the adjacent fields so that was nice, as well as Teal, Shelduck, Tufted Duck, Little Grebe, Mallard, Coot and Moorhen in the further away pools. They could really do with another hide further around the reserve., although the Listening Wall is a good viewpoint with parking.

We drove on to the coast at the Bay of Skaill, where there were quite a few waders about, Dunlin, Sanderling, Turnstone and Ringed Plover. The wind was so strong though we could hardly open the car doors, so photographic opportunities were limited as the wind was buffeting the camera around, I could hardly keep it still, so just the one picture for you!

We carried on exploring and ended up at the Ring of Brodgar, so a couple of tourist photos to be going on with.... The Stones...

there were a few Orchids around the site, I think this is a Northern Marsh Orchid, but I'm willing to be corrected!

More of the ring,

and there is plenty of Cotton Grass (Bog Cotton) on the islands.

After the ring we found a nice little viewpoint on the opposite side of the Loch of Harray to have a stop and a brew, as we approached it, we couldn't believe a male Hen Harrier came and flew alongside the car, we sopped and I jumped out and tried to get a photo, this was the best of a bad bunch as it flew on ahead of us:

We did watch it for a while as it hunted in the nearby fields. This was the first of many Hen Harrier sightings.

One of the must see sights on Orkney are the Churchill Barriers and the Scapa Flow Wrecks, I won't go into the history, but if you want to know more go to:

Scapa Flow Wrecks

Here's a shot of one of the wrecks at Barrier No 2:

Finally for day 1! We discovered a wildlife hide a couple of minutes from where we staying in St. Mary's. It overlooked Loch Ayre, a very small loch on the edge of St Mary's. There were loads of Arctic Terns using it to bathe after fishing out at sea, unfortunately the weather and light was awful, but here you go:

Black-headed Gull and Red-breasted Merganser,

Male Red-breasted Merganser,

Male Eider,

Mute Swans with Cygnets,

Female Eiders with Eiderlings (is that a word?),

So that'll do for starters...don't want you to get bored...yet!!