I’d never been to Fetlar before and, with the promise of a siting of a red-necked phalarope (a very rare bird), I decided to go and caught the first ferry out of Gutcher (Yell) at 7.20 – I had breakfast when I got there rather than before. As I had been living “rough” I was in need of electric hook up particularly as I am unable to recharge my camera battery without mains electricity (Jill, if there is a way, do let me know).
Windy but not raining.
Very basic camp site but at least it had electricity when I worked out how it worked. And that was when I found out I’d lost my water tank cap – which is a bit like a petrol cap and just as important.
Fetlar has been subject to all the usual things; Stone age, Picts, Norse(Time Team went there in 2002), clearances, fishing. In addition to the phalarope it is also famed for having had snowy owls breed there for 40 years (they haven’t been seen since 1995) and whimbrel which I think I saw but I really can’t tell the difference between them and curlews. Half of the island is closed off during the bird breeding season.
The Laird responsible for the clearances was Sir Arthur Nicolson who built his extraordinary house Brough Lodge and a tower, the latter on top of a broch, on the west coast of the island.
It was last lived in in 1970’s and is now a ruin.
I went there in the evening and the light was lovely. Down on the beach there is a sixareen, still tied up which was used as the ferry (the flit boat) for everything before Ro-Ro. Shetlanders never throw anything away
but even better there were a couple of red-throated divers
The famous person whom the folk of Fetlar are proud of is Sir William Watson Cheyne who worked with Lister to produce antiseptic. He built Leagarth House in the village(Houbie) which is being restored
There is a rather good museum called the Fetlar Inerpretive Centre in the centre of the village. The shop in the village was advertised as closed but when I went to find out how to pay for my night at camp site they were open “for stocking up”. The shopkeeper was able to explain to me the impenetrable timetable for catching the ferry back in the morning. Fortunately I ignored her advice about catching the second boat later in the morning as it had broken down and there was only the one but that meant I had to go back to Yell via Unst – but then sodid most of the other travellers.
The guide for the phalarope is to go to the south east of the island and look for them on Loch Funzie and nesting on the Mires of Funzie (there is a hide). I did see one, fleetingly through a birders telescope – I couldn’t through my binoculars as they are so small - the size of sanderling - and this one was too far away. But what I did watch was a snipe having a jolly good wash just next to the hide at the Mires
A nice clean snipe
Funzie beach was used for drying fish
Funzie beach – stones squashed and stretched by the ancient sea being pushed up and over continental rocks
and up on the cliffs
Fetlar’s geology wall
Whooper swans at Tresta beach
Bluebells!
Is this where the expression “mutton chops” comes from?
Shetland sheep – and ponies – don’t get shorn, their wool is pulled off them.
Tresta beach from the camp site
Still no otters, whales etc
No comments:
Post a Comment