After an enjoyable few hours watching the British & Irish Lions demolition of Australia, I loaded up the car, collected our picnics from The Swan and headed north to collect Jacky and Marcus from their holiday accommodation at the stunning St Cuthbert’s House. A quick drive back down the coast and we collected Alice and John and embarked on our search of Druridge Bay, southeast Northumberland and the Northumberland coast.
I’d identified a site where Otters have been active in the late afternoon, so that was our first port of call. With Common Terns dip-feeding just in front of us, Canada and Greylag Geese with goslings, Gadwall with ducklings and lots of Sand Martins and Swallows there was plenty of birdwatching interest as we waited in hope for the possible appearance of our target species for the trip. Jacky’s excited comment “there’s a…yes, it’s an Otter” marked the start of nearly an hour of Otter activity. The initial animal turned out to be two together, and then eventually we were watching four of them as they swam back and forth, feeding, clambering on poolside rocks and play-fighting 🙂
Lapwings, Curlew and a Greenshank were all evidence of post-breeding gathering/migration, Starlings were grouping into larger flocks as daylight faded, Sand Martins were swirling in a big pre-roost flock, a Barn Owl drifted on silent wings over a reedbed and, as the falling light levels finally rendered everything as a silhouette we headed back to the car with pipistrelles hawking just over our heads.