Final day😢 we had to be out of our apartment by 10am catching the ferry at 7pm meant we had a final day to enjoy the islands, we decided to reverse our 1st day, start down at Sumburgh then head north to arrive in Lerwick by 7pm.
We were out in good time and headed south, we called into Grutness in the hope of something rare, nice to see some Ringed Plover chicks, a final showy Wheatear and an Arctic Tern or two.
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| Ringed Plover chicks, fingers crossed for em! |
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| Arctic Tern |
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| Curlew |
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| Wheatear |
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| Wheatear |
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| Shetland Wren |
We reached Sumburgh, what a difference two weeks makes, on our first day we had a few Puffins, got a few pics, but today the place was jam packed with em, littering the cliffs and flying about, in one foolish attempt to count them in the air I had 40!! but there were many, many more, fantastic!
Possibly a few too many Puffin pics there, can you have too many Puffin pics!!?😀
Were a few other birds about as well!
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| Great Black-backed Gull a whole holiday without one trying to kill me hurrah! |
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| Fulmars, absolutely everywhere on the Islands, easy to take for granted, fabulous birds! |
It was then we heard a flock of Starlings going mental, looking around was great to see a Hobby harassing them, not so great for the Starlings obviously but this holiday has seen a dearth of Raptors so nice to get one on the final day!
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| Hobby |
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| Hobby |
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| Got a bit excited by this, dreams of large Whales, but after much debate we decided it was a rock just under the surface, denied!! |
Of course we paid a visit to the café!!
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| Margie went sensible with a mega roll!! |
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| I obviously didn't, can't remember what it was called but was jammy/cinnamon goodness! |
We left sad but happy, where to go now, C'mon there was only one option Loch of Clumlie!! Obvs!!
Got to give the LTS one final chance to perform.
We arrived in good time and sat for a couple of hours, no sign of the LTS apparently turned up 40 mins after we left!! In some ways I'm glad it didn't, had it showed first day, we wouldn't have seen all the great stuff at the Loch, an awesome place, didn't disappoint today either, you wait all holiday for one raptor, then 3 turn up at once!! (yes I know we had a Marsh Harrier and a White-tailed Eagle previously but that doesn't fit the narrative so put it out of your mind for a moment!😁) not just the Hobby at Sumburgh, but a Merlin shot across the Loch and then a Kestrel appeared being harassed by a Curlew, have to say the Merlin pics are a disaster it shot out of the moors in a flurry of angry Meadow Pipits and Skylarks and went across the lake like a rocket!! Kestrel was a bit more cooperative!
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| Merlin |
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| Kestrel and Curlew |
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| Kestrel |
Plenty of good stuff as well, the highlight yet another Arctic Skua having a bath right in front of us!!
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| Off it went! |
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| Greylag Goose |
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| Raven |
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| Bonxie |
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| Oystercatchers another under appreciated bird which are everywhere in Shetland and noisy with it!! |
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| Whooper Swans, were nine on the Loch today!! |
We dragged ourselves away, with a ferry to catch we carried on north, stopped to get a couple of pics of the Mousa Broch!
We headed up to Lerwick, had a wander around the town grabbed a bite to eat then went and queued for the ferry the last bird I got to take pics of on Shetland was fittingly a Hooded Crow who was mopping up some spilt grain in the harbour!! Love a Hoody!!
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| Hooded Crow |
So onto the ferry, I had booked a cabin as a 9 hour drive would need me well rested, but spent a good couple of hours on deck, all the regulars came to say goodbye!
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| Black Guillemot |
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| Common Tern, these, Kittiwakes and Larger Gulls were feeding in the wake as the ship set off |
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| Guillemot |
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| Kittiwake |
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| Razorbills |
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| Goodbye to Lerwick |
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| Fulmar followed the ship all the way out to sea |
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| The sun came out to say Goodbye |
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| Goodbye to Noss |
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| Gannets |
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| a final Bonxie |
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| Kittiwake at one point thought it was coming on board |
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| Possibly Fair Isle |
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| Goodbye to Sumburgh |
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| A final Gannet waves goodbye |
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| Goodbye to Shetland! |
So to bed, slept a bit in the Cabin, certainly more than in the Sleep Pod on the way out to Shetland, We were up and showered early, for some reason my alarm went off at 5AM rather than the 6AM I set it for, spooky! Something we didn't realise until we got to the Restaurant and found it closed, Duh!! We had a quick breakfast, I had decided not to go up on deck with the camera a decision I regretted as from the restaurants window we saw a large pod of Dolphins playing about at the entrance to Aberdeen Harbour!!! Duh!!
The Sat Nav had us arriving home at 16.30, things went well, we had a nice stop at Tebay Services, gotta be the best food on the motorway network and an excellent Farm Shop attached as well! It all unravelled when we hit the M40, someone had shut it😡, cue a massive diversion through the countryside around Warwick, get through that and some plonker has set fire to their car on the M25, another closed Motorway!! No diversion just gotta sit in it!!😢 Get home at 8pm!! Oh for the empty roads of Shetland!!
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