We drove to Romsey, arriving at 11am. We had a coffee and then went for lunch with Vera at Prezzos. Wendy came round in the afternoon, followed by Ian and Nicky. We had a chat with tea and mince pies, but the pastry on the pies was too thick. We left at 5pm to drive …
We parked in front of a feeder in the Greylake RSPB reserve car park and watched the birds until it stopped raining. Then we walked on the trail through the reedbeds and sat in the hide. The sun came out. There were lots of ducks, some buzzards perched on fence posts drying out their wings, …
We were not expecting to see much when we arrived late afternoon at Ham Wall. It was overcast, windy, and starting to rain. However, small flocks of starlings were arriving at the same time as we were. A great egret flew past, and a young heron came very close, seemingly oblivious to our presence on …
Lazy morning. Packed lunch and drove to Loch Spiggie. On the single-track road around Bigton we had to pull in to let a large German tour bus pass in the other direction. At Loch Spiggie we walked a short way along the loch to the beach in howling gales with few breaks in the rain. …
R dropped J off at Clickimmin Broch in Lerwick in the morning. J spent the morning looking round the broch and Lerwick library, museum, and arts centre. R drove up to the Vidlin in the north-west mainland to look for otters. R spent an hour at Swining Voe. A tern colony was aggressive when passed, …
In the morning we drove across East Burra and parked at Houss. We walked out on Houss Ness for a bit, hoping to spot for otters. We didn’t see any. We went to Scalloway and had Cullen Skink at Da Haaf, a nice canteen attached to the University of the Highlands and Islands marine centre …
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 …
We went to Sumburgh Head in the morning. We parked at the hotel and went to look at Jarlshof. On the way, we stopped to look at some Shetland ponies in a field. A man came down with his young daughter to check on the ponies. He offered to sell us one for £1500. He …
In Lerwick R bought a replacement camera, from the choice of one available in the only camera shop in Shetland. Not as good as the broken one, but will have to do. We had a coffee in the Peerie Shop cafe and mooched around Lerwick for a bit. It’s the carnival tonight, and during the …
Decent breakfast – good kippers. R’s camera is playing up: it won’t power on. Google reveals a camera shop in Lerwick which we’ll visit in the morning. We went to Hillswick and parked opposite the St Magnus Bay hotel. We walked around the Ness of Hillswick. Five miles in total, spectacular scenery all round. The …