We had an email notification that tonight’s 22:30 trip to Mousa to see the storm petrels was cancelled due to bad weather – i.e. high winds.
We decided to go to Fetlar, to look for red-necked phalaropes. We set off at 7:30am. We drove up to the north of the mainland and took three ferries to Fetlar (population 50, size 5 miles by 2 miles). We went straight to Loch Funzie, pronounced “Finnie” of course, to look for red-necked phalaropes. It was very windy. We walked round the side of the loch to the RSPB hide overlooking the Mire of Funzie – a wetland area with pools mixed with stands of horsetail and cottongrass. Snipe were drumming overhead and Starlings were busy everywhere, chattering. Redshanks and bonxies came past, a couple of Arctic skuas flew overhead, and some black-headed gulls were hovering low over a meadow looking like they were catching insects. They were nesting further out. We didn’t see any phalaropes.
We drove to Aith and parked at the Bod and ate lunch watching the breakers crashing in from the Wick of Aith. Then we drove to Everland and attempted a walk along the coast, but high winds and freezing rain made us abandon the attempt.
We went back to Funzie. After an hour in the hide, watching snipe drumming and chasing each other in mating displays, and a distant red-throated diver, we resigned ourselves to a Fetlar phalarope failure.
However…
On the way back to the car, by the side of the loch, we met a Scottish couple who pointed out a phalarope right next to them on the shore. It was blowing a gale and lashing with rain, but we got some good close views.
We stopped on the way back to the ferry terminal and J had a cup of tea and cake in the shop/cafe at Houbie. R went down to the beach to look at stuff. The girl serving had been here three weeks, moving up with her stockman partner. R came up and bought potatoes for tea, and beer.
We got the ferry to Yell, and raced across Yell, making it just in time for the 17:30 to the mainland.