Departing Lerwick Harbour

Our last day, and with us all either staying on Shetland or getting off on the late ferry we had time to visit Hermaness which we had missed out on a couple of days ago.

Great views of nesting Bonxies and Dunlin then views over the Gannet colony and views towards the Muckle Flugga lighthouse. Having had great photographs of gannets at Noss, Hermaness was more about just enjoying the views and the atmosphere, unfortunately time was still tight and after ten minutes we had to head back to catch the ferry.

While waiting for the ferry RCB found an Arctic Tern, these were virtually everywhere on Shetland, but unlike their counterparts on Coquet Island they were sharing the same fate as the other Shetland seabirds and not doing terribly well.

Back on Mainland there were a couple of outstanding "ticks" to be had - Mountain Hare and Long-tailed Skua. Not too many takers in the group for the Skua, Adrian preferring to pick up his hire car and head back to Saxa Vord and Christine wanted to check out the Lerwick shops. The Mountain Hare country was en-route and Gary picked one out from the bus which Adrian duly headed off to photograph while the rest of us remained by the bus watching his progress. Photographs taken we headed on to Lerwick.

Bade farewell to Adrian who's spending a few more days before heading home - As he missed out on seeing the Phalarope I hope he returns to Fetlar and is able to get one in his lens. I'm certainly looking forward to getting copies of some photos that he took at the same time as me, just to see how well his lens and camera perform. Christine was reunited with her car and we'll see her on the ferry tonight.

With Lillian still "hostage" in the bus the hardcore birders returned to the Long-tailed Skua. We walked a bit further than before, but no luck and in a fairly chilly wind our hardcore resolve didn't last that long. Lillian was spending the night back at Spiggie before catching an early flight out in the morning. We dropped her off and said our farewells then Gary took us to the ferry terminal.

Shetland still had a couple of more treats in store for us - in Lerwick harbour the Dutch fishing boat OCEAAN VII was cleaning out its tanks to the joy of the local seagulls. We scanned through them, but couldn't come up with anything exotic other than a couple of Bonxies and a couple of Black Guillemots looking on. Today's photo was then of it departing south accompanied by loads of gulls and the Lerwick harbour pilot / tug Kebister. This may have in fact been the reason for the second "treat" as our ferry had to depart northwards which took us round the back of Noss for more views of the Gannet colony.

Farewell Shetland, it was a good trip, the weather could have been better, but it could have been a lot worse, the Phalaropes could have been more accommodating, but at least we saw one and the mix of interests within our group let us see lots of other stuff that wouldn't have been on our "hit list" and well done Gary for ensuring that we all left with our personal goals achieved. We'll be back.