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....