Well after the long journey home and getting back to work have fallen well behind on my Blog Posts! Today's post goes back to the 12th of May, having seen on the twitter loads of posts about loads of Poms flying along Seaford Beach 😢 Blooming typical to be honest blooming birds!! I found hope in reports of Poms flying along the west coast of Shetland!! Hurrah!! Our day was sorted an awesome Seawatch, Margie was thrilled😃😏 Weather forecast was a little dodgy, but with plenty of waterproofs we headed off to the coast, eventually parking at Dale. Nice walk to the cliffs, with the weather playing ball. A few of Margie's pictures below.
Fantastic scenery, we reached the cliff edge and snuggled down, scope out, at this point the weather stopped playing ball and there was a pretty sharp shower!! However it soon passed and the sun came out, it became obvious that the Poms were playing hard to get, so hard I didn't get one😢 A lone Arctic Skua, lots of Gannets and a few Kittiwakes the best I could manage in the hour or we stuck it out, kudos to Margie she didn't moan at all!!
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| Last years young Kittiwakes |
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| Gannets |
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| Fulmar |
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| Fulmar |
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| Margie's picture of what I think is Foula |
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| Landscape by Margie |
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| Craggy foreshore by Margie |
We headed back to the car, a Whimbrel was wandering about on the grass and Curlews were displaying all over!
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| Whimbrel |
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| Curlew |
At the car, we met a couple who had given up the rat race in Norfolk, to move to Shetland, from the sound of it their house needs a lot of work, but good luck to them it was a lovely spot, they were also very forthcoming about the local wildlife and suggested we head round to Sandness where the beach had good numbers of Waders with Divers just off the coast, the journey we were told went through country that was good for Grouse and Mountain Hare. So we set off stopping many times along the way to scan the moorland for the above mentioned critters!! Although we heard Grouse, we didn't manage to see any nor sadly the Mountain Hares😢
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| Curlew on the moor |
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| Whooper Swan on a small Loch we passed on the way |
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| Red-throated Diver on the same Loch |
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| Some stunning scenery captured by Margie |
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| And Again |
We arrived at Sandness, parking at the head of the beach, I scanned looking along the beach, in the distance was a brown blob, "that looks like an Otter" I said to Margie, Margie looked, "it's a rock" she replied, hmm. "Don't think it's a rock" Doubt in my voice as it hadn't moved!! "could be a dead Bonxie" I said, sadly we have seen a few dead birds about, Bird Flu suspected by the locals, Margie replied "defo a rock" at which point "the rock" ran down the beach "Otter!!" we both said at once, we had good, but distant views of the beast as it ran around on the beach before it slid into the sea!! "doesn't get much better than that" I said, spoiler alert I was wrong!!😀
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| Otter on the beach |
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| Dwarfed by the Great Black-backed Gull |
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| Heading to the sea |
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| In the sea |
So we were fairly happy with this sighting😂😂 We walked around the beach, but had lost sight of the Otter, there we plenty of Waders on the beach feeding in the seaweed and at the waters edge, Turnstones, Dunlin and Sanderling in the main and I found a nice White Wagtail as well, which I was pleased with!
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| Twite |
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| Twite |
Arctic Terns were present in quite good numbers, noisily squabbling as per usual!! Though one pair were bonding on the water!
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| Arctic Tern |
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| Flew off with the fish, perhaps she wasn't the "one"😢 |
Some more people turned up, they had seen the Otter and it had disappeared under the jetty we were stood on!! Dang!! We even heard it calling from beneath!! I realised now that I had left my spare battery in the car and I was flashing red😱!! So I walked back around and got the car, by the time I came back nothing had changed, we sat in the sun listening to the Otter, an Artic Skua flew into the bay, had a half-hearted go at the Terns before flying over our heads and away, cracking views but difficult light makes the pics a bit rubbish! Or possibly my lack of skill!!
After a while it seemed the Otter wasn't coming out so we headed around the wall to have a look at the sea around the corner, quite dicey, but we got round ok, in the rock pools more waders, including some nice Purple Sandpipers. The Terns had settled onto some rocks, though still pretty bolshy!!
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| Arctic Terns |
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| Still can't see what was wrong with that fish!! |
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| Shetland Wren popped up at my feet! |
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| Purple Sandpiper |
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| Oystercatcher |
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| Turnstone |
We headed back to the beach, a Great Northern Diver on the sea along with a Cormorant, didn't see that many on Shetland.
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| Great Northern Diver |
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| Cormorant |
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| GND |
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| Rockpool by Margie |
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| Think it had 2 legs but was just showing off, captured by Margie |
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| Anchor by Margie, at least I thought that's what she said😲! |
I decided a walk back up the road in order to see the Twite again was in order, about halfway along we saw movement on the beach, Otter again heading right towards us!! A small stream ran onto the beach and the Otter seemed to move up it so we hurried on, slowly approaching the spot we had stunning views of an amazing creature, we assumed it was the same one from before although how it got here with out us spotting it, we had no idea!!
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| Ambling in |
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| Having a drink |
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| Think it spotted me! |
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| Off it trotted |
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| A final look back |
This was the only Otter sighting we had on the trip, but has to be said was a cracker!! Even woke up the Sanderling!
We didn't think it could get any better, but on the way home we found the original cake fridge!! Whoop!! Bit disappointed to learn the one in the Shetland TV series was a mock up, this one was attached to a tearoom but we found another out in the wild a few days later!! There were also some baby goats, which I managed to stop Margie taking home!! Also a Shetland Pony with extremely good hair!
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| Shetland Pony |
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| Margie felt this was a bit sickly so I ate her bit, proving her wrong! |
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| Cute (allegedly) baby Goats |
After that we headed back to base where I had a Macaroni Cheese Pie for tea, I don't know why these were invented! Not a fan, Bake Beans in the bottom of it as well😏
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| Macaroni Cheese Pie |
So not really all about the Otter, cakes as well!! Great Day!!!!😀
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