Shetland - Continued!

 The wind is still blowing a gale, but Shetland is the windiest part of the UK, just don't remember it being this bad last time.

Another days saw us up the north west of the mainland a visit to Hillswick, where there were plenty of Red-breasted Merganser, performing reasonably close:

As well as Red-throated Divers:

Shame it wasn't sunny to bring out the colours, never mind! There's some great scenery up there too:

Eshaness.

We had a lunch stop at Heylor, where there were plenty of Mergansers;

Common and Arctic Terns

and Ringed Plover, Turnstone, All the Gulls, Guillemot, Black Guillemot, Skua and even the odd Puffin on the water.

Not far from Sandwick where we were staying, we came across Curlew, with some youngsters 😀

Next day we checked on 'our' Phalaropes again, but sadly they were not visible or had moved elsewhere. So we did some more exploring and found:

A pair of Whoopers with Cygnets at Clumlie Loch,

along with an Arctic Skua

and Snipe.

Whooper cygnets were a first for us.

Down at Grutness on the way toSumburgh Head we stopped at the pool..

Mallard with a single Duckling,

Arctic Tern,

Oystercatcher,

Arctic Terns,

Common Gull having a bath,

and a Dunlin.

I'll leave Sumburgh Head for another post, it will be a Puffin fest!

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....

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.....................