Puffin Snack

Arrived Lerwick 7:00, but had a relaxed breakfast on board, before disembarking at 9:15 to meet our tour guide Gary in the ferry terminal. Got a text that he'd be a bit late - 9:30, at 9:45 he picked us up, also there was Christine who'd been waiting outside the terminal building. We then headed south and picked up Lillian & Adrian (not a couple) who'd arrived yesterday and stayed overnight at the Spiggie House Hotel.

Next stop Sumburgh Head for the seabirds, surprisingly after our trip to Coquet Island where all the bird numbers were up and breeding was going well it was the opposite here, with many of the auks having already given up, anyway there were still a few around. Outwith the seabirds we had good views of Shetland Wren and Twite. RCB captured an excellent Arctic Skua and while other groups had departed bemoaning the fact that there were no Puffins about Gary managed to find us this chap with a mouth full of sandeels.

In the afternoon we booked into the Spiggie Hotel for the next two nights, visited St Ninian's Isle which is joined to the mainland by a sand beach tombolo, and headed to East Hogaland on an unsuccessful search for a Long-tailed Skua.

That evening Gary quizzed us on what we were all expecting from the trip. Lillian was after flowers, Adrian & Christine otters, while Mrs L and I were the birders. The reason for booking the trip was to see the Red-necked Phalaropes, 95% of the UK breeding population are on Fetlar, with the night time trip to Mousa for the Storm Petrels our other highlight. Unfortunately the news wasn't good on either. The Phalaropes insect food hasn't been hatching and therefore they've changed their feeding habits, there were tales of people spending a week on Fetlar and never seeing one, and we were only going to have one day. Also the bad weather had meant some recent cancellations of the Mousa trip, again we only had one shot at that - hey ho, fingers crossed.