Otter Snack

A big day today, we're moving from Mainland to the isle of Unst, plus en-route we've got to fit in Hermaness National Nature Reserve and the Keen of Hamar National Nature Reserve.

8:00 breakfast and by 9:15 we're all in the minibus ready to head off. First on the agenda though is to find some Grass of Parnassus for Lillian. We headed towards South Nesting where Gary knew of a site where it grows, but all the time on the lookout for those elusive Mountain Hares and Otters - We'd already turned down the "opportunity" to search again for the elusive Long-tailed Skua (Big day, let's get on with it). Almost at our flower site we pulled over to scan the sea inlet of Vadill of Garth, most of us remained in the minibus with only Mrs L & Gary actually getting out and while Gary was scanning the sea Mrs L had a look round for anything else. To her surprise "anything else" turned out to be an otter jogging down the road.

So this brings you to the third in my series of animal snacks - I'm sure you all found the Puffin with Sandeels quite cute, but the Bonxie with Guillemot chick maybe was a little upsetting. So you'll be happy we're back on cute ground with an otter - WRONG, those that found the Guillemot chick upsetting better skip the next couple of paragraphs.

We all got out of the minibus once Mrs L pointed out her find then the otter took a right, into a field full of farmyard ducks. Initially nothing happened and we couldn't see the otter, then suddenly one of the ducks is flapping about and the other ducks are heading for the field across the road. It almost had the feel of a cartoon struggle as the duck's head came up above the grass, then a wing, then the duck's feet were in the air and then it was struggling no more.

With the otter now fully engrossed in its kill and the wind in the right direction, we were able to take up quite close positions on the road and watch the gory event unfold. I've spared you the pictures of it tearing the duck apart, of it crunching the bones in its jaws. You've got the photo of it realising it had company. If you dare go LARGE you can appreciate its blood stained snout, and the remains of the duck beside her (sexed by those that know), but more interesting you'll see her right eye is closed - perhaps this could be the reason why she has reverted to easier prey. Anyway once we'd been discovered she dragged the duck carcass away to the far edge of the field and we then left her in peace.

Okay that's the gory bit over, on with the flower hunt now although in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fashion I must warn you that one of the Grass of Parnassus flowers is going to get damaged.

No more than an a kilometre further on we were at Ling Ness the site of our flower, but all we knew were that they were on the north side of one of a couple of hills. I enjoyed the search, loads of pretty wild flowers that I had no idea what they were, but snapped away for future reference in my newly acquired Francis Rose's The Wild Flower Key. Of course I had to head over the top of the hill where I got some fine shots of a Meadow Pipit, but given the attention it was paying to me I realised I needed to be extra careful as to where I stepped. Anyway by the time I'd finished playing and rejoined the others the flowers had been found. Lillian had found one down by the road and was photographing it when a couple of Shetland ponies came over to check her out and duly trod all over the flower (that's the scary bit over!). However there were more in flower just further up the hill that Gary had found that were duly photographed.

Time was getting on, already one o'clock and we weren't even off Mainland, never mind getting to either of the NNRs on Unst. Gary asked if anyone wanted to try and see a dolphin that was hanging around just up the road in Vidlin Voe, My vote was No as I thought we should get on to the NNRs, but as seems to happen a lot with me I was in a minority of one so we went to have a look, lunching by the graveyard of Lunna Kirk of Shetland Bus fame.

With no luck with the dolphin we headed to the ferry for Yell, drove through Yell and caught the ferry to Unst. Given our lack of time we couldn't do both NNRs so we ended up at Keen of Hamar with the hope of being able to get to Hermaness on our last day.

Keen of Hamar is all about exceedingly rare flowers, but whereas I thoroughly enjoyed this morning's hunt for Grass of Parnassus in beautiful surroundings, Keen of Hamar is more like a lunar wasteland. I know there will be botanists that would be having orgasms over what was there, however Mrs L and I preferred a wander to the top of the hill and sat and enjoyed the view out to sea and watched a group of Bonxies playing - heathens I know, sorry!

That evening we checked in to Saxa Vord where we had three houses each sleeping five between five of us!