SCOTTISH ISLAND HOLIDAYS

FRI 26 JANUARY – THURS 1 FEBRUARY 2024

GUIDE PRICE: £1845pp

Single supplement: £195. Deposit: £300pp

Max 7 clients. Leader from our experienced team Price excludes flight from Aberdeen.

Rugged Shetland is a wild and beautiful place throughout the year, and this new trip explores the isles in winter, its hardy wildlife and the unique Viking heritage. The Up Helly Aa Viking Fire Festival is famous the world over, a real spectacle which will be a feature of this holiday as we take in cultural experiences and marvel at the parades finishing with the burning of the Galley ship.

We mainly focus on coastal wildlife, wildfowl featuring strongly as we search local goose flocks for scarcer species such as Tundra and Taiga Bean, Barnacle and Whitefronted (both races) Goose. Birdwatching in sheltered bays can offer Great Northern and Red-throated Diver, Slavonian Grebe, Long-tailed Duck, Eider, Black Guillemot (Tysties), Purple Sandpiper and Turnstone. Glaucous and Iceland Gull occur anywhere the fishing industry is active and there is a chance of Little Auk too. Passerines are scarce at this time but we should see Twite and Rock Pipit, with Snow Bunting and Waxwing possible, while raptors are likely to include Merlin and Peregrine. Shetland is renowned for rarities and in recent winters White-billed Diver, Pied-billed Grebe, Lesser Scaup, Ring Necked Duck, King Eider, Surf Scoter, Brunnich’s Guillemot, Snowy Owl and Gyrfalcon have all been recorded.