Wednesday’s trip was an Otter mini-Safari, concentrating on Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland, and I collected Gillian, Stevie, Evelyn and Davy from Church Point, in weather that was quite a contrast to Tuesday’s gloom…

We haven’t had an Otter Safari since late November, and we’d been on a long run of successful trips, so I’d got my fingers crossed that we’d find Otters at at least one of our regular sites.  Incredibly, we’d not even reached the water’s edge when we spotted the first Otter cub of the afternoon 🙂  Within a few minutes we were watching an adult female and two cubs, and for nearly two hours they provided fantastic entertainment; feeding, playing, play-fighting, calling to each other, clambering into the holt for a rest.  After the female ate a small fish on a rock right in front of us, she caught a larger fish and swam towards the holt and both cubs came rushing out of the holt and met her before she’d reached the water’s edge as Little Egrets and Little Grebes continued plundering the supply of small fish.  We finished at dusk with an impressive roost of Lapwing, Dunlin, Curlew, Oystercatcher, Teal and Wigeon.  It would probably be a struggle to watch a 3hr wildlife documentary, but 3hrs of real wildlife just getting on with life in front of you seems to fly by 🙂