Snowy Owl excitement

A SNOWY owl, discovered at Mossy Hill in Shetland’s south mainland on Tuesday afternoon, is causing excitement among bird watchers and nature lovers.

Hugh Harrop of Shetland Wildlife tours said snowy owls were very rare visitors to the isles; the last one he had seen in Shetland was back in 1996.

However, this year there were already two or three sightings of snowy owls in Orkney and also one reported in St Kilda.

Shetland became famous among ecologists when the late Bobby Tulloch discovered a pair snowy owls nesting on the island of Fetlar in 1967.