Shetland to star in Wild Isles finale with otters, gannets and mysterious ‘dance of the fairies’  

Gannets plunge diving into the sea to catch their prey. Photo: Richard Shucksmith/BBC.

Shetland will again take centre stage during the fifth and final episode of Sir David Attenborough’s acclaimed Wild Isles documentary series.

Having already stunned viewers with otters, seals and orcas during the opening episode, Sunday’s show is set to return to the Shetland seas once more.

Here the team encounter some of the more unusual ocean dwellers, including the mysterious royal flush sea slugs.

In a television first, crews captured the slugs’ mass migration as they take off from the sea floor and swim through the water in what seems like a “dance of the fairies” using their mantels as wings.

Another filming first sees a mother otter bringing back prey for her pup waiting on the shore.

In typical teenage fashion, the young otter is not keen on the crunchy crustacean snack and can be seen almost grimacing as it bites through the shell.

While the hunting behaviour has been documented before, never had it been filmed at sea.

The teams used a combination of drones and underwater footage to capture the footage.

Elsewhere, the documentary takes a look at Shetland’s huge forests. Trees may be in short supply, but below the waves the crews came across entire forests of carbon-capturing kelp.

These forests are reported to be among the thickest and most vigorous of their kind in Britain and Ireland, with some individual kelp growing to over two metres tall.

Looking to the skies, the show captures the stunning spectacle of gannets diving to hunt  huge swirling shoals of herring and mackerel.

Introducing what is likely to be one of his last documentaries filmed on location, Sir David said:  “Here in Britain and Ireland we have some of the richest seas in Europe.

“Our varied coastline, if you include all the many offshore islands, is over 22,000 miles long and none of us live more than 70 miles away from the sea.

“Yet few of us have seen the wonders beyond the beach and beneath the waves.

“In this episode we will take you from the most southerly point of the United Kingdom to the furthest north to explain why our seas can be so productive and reveal the threats that they face today.”

Much of the Shetland footage has been captured with the help of renowned isles photographers, Brydon Thomason and Richard Shucksmith.

Shetland’s star billing in earlier episodes has already seen a sharp increase in inquiries from tourists. 

On the day before the  first programme aired, there were 272 views on Shetland-related tourism websites compared to 739 the day after, according to VisitScotland.

Episode five, titled Ocean, will air on BBC One and iPlayer on Sunday at 7pm.