Fetlar 2024. Part 1. High winds and heavy rain

My trip to Fetlar didn't get off to the most auspicious of starts. Leaving home, in Cheshire, at just after 3 am Friday morning I made good time and arrived at Glasgow airport for my supposed 10.15 am flight to Sumburgh where I was picking up a hire car and taking a leisurely journey north to Fetlar via Tesco's in Lerwick and ferries across to Yell and ultimately Fetlar.

Unfortunately Loganair had other ideas. My flight was delayed by 5.5 hours! With absolutely no help from Loganair, apart from being messaged to advise our boarding card could be used to obtain £5.00 worth of food - not even enough for a meal deal at W H Smiths we were left to fend for ourselves. There was no one to ask 'airside' in the departures area and the 'customer relations' team we phoned on several occasions were about as useful as a chocolate fireguard. Its only when we saw 'our plane' being towed off the stand we realised we might be stuck in Glasgow overnight.  Thankfully, probably because it was going to cost them a fortune in putting us all up overnight, Loganair diverted a plane from Aberdeen. One of the airport ground staff told us before even Loganair knew themselves.

Eventually arriving in Sumburgh my now leisurely drive became a high speed dash up the spine of mainland Shetland with a quick 'supermarket trolley dash' into Tesco's before another quick stop at the animal feed store to pick up the obligatory sack of birdseed (more on that later) and then onto Toft for the somewhat later than I expected ferry across to Ulsta on Yell. Whilst talking to one of the ferry crew members he suggested that if I put my foot down I could actually make the original ferry I'd booked for Fetlar via Unst. Very kindly he let me off ahead of the two caravans that would have lost me valuable time. So, despite the best efforts of Loganair I arrived at our accommodation on Fetlar at 20.00 - almost 17 hours after leaving Cheshire.

Saturday was grim weather wise and it was a case of battening down the hatches and seeing what came to the bird seed spread liberally across the drive. It was great to catch up with Mark & Linda Sutton in their new camper van hear a bit more about their recent Australian birding odyssey. Later we met up with local birder Paul Macklam at the community hall social and quiz night. I'd last seen Paul two years ago on my last visit to Fetlar. A serious knee injury meant I couldn't make it last year.

Thankfully the weather improved Sunday but it was still windy with some heavy showers. A good solid 8 hours in the field and 26,000 steps didn't result in anything spectacular but after two days on inactivity it was good to stretch the legs and blow the cobwebs away. Two Yellow-browed Warblers and a handful of commoner migrants was scant reward. However, I did find a nice Siberian (tristis) Chiffchaff  at The Glebe and the local Golden Plover and Lapwing posed up a storm! 

Above: Siberian Chiffchaff

Unfortunately I didn't hear it call and to me the legs don't look black enough but none other than Killian Mullarney himself said it looked good  for 'tristis' so thats good enough for me! 

The scenery here can be spectacular and the skies and cloud formations are amazing. Our accommodation is at Houbie and close to one of the best birding spots on Fetlar - Feal Burn and the plantation. The usual routine is to walk the burn and check the plantation before coming back for a brew and then explore other sites on the island before doing the burn and plantation again late afternoon before it gets dark - birds are dropping in and moving down the island all the time so its worth checking sites more than once.

Looking up Feal Burn to the plantation

Tresta is another birding hotspot with the large garden at The Glebe (formerly the Manse) being well worth checking . Its held a host of good birds - including a Taiga Flycatcher I saw here in October 2009! See here. More recently I found the holy grail of birding finds when I stumbled upon a male Siberian Rubythroat in the garden of one of the crofts. Probably my finest birding hour. See here

You can see why expectations were high but, sadly, the only find was the afore mentioned Siberian Chiffchaff. It was good to catch up with the Barnacal Goose found by Linda a few days previously as it flew in wit ha flock of Greylag Geese.

Most of the Barnacle geese we see in Cheshire are probably of feral origin but this is likely to be  a genuinely wild bird.

I'm pleased to say the bird seed worked and among the throng of local House Sparrows and Starlings gorging themselves three Brambling were attracted down to the free meal.

It was also nice to catch up with this male Merlin hunting along the roadside at Funzie before perching up just long enough for a couple of photos.