After Friday’s lovely weather, it was almost too much to hope that the weekend would stay like that…
I arrived at Church Point to collect Jeanette and Simon, Liz and Simon & Gareth and Chris and we set off on a tour of southeast Northumberland in search of Otters. As we arrived at our first site the raindrops began to pepper the car windscreen but were short lived. The next 3 hours brought a remarkable range of weather conditions; bright warm sunshine, heavy cloud, heavy rain, glowering skies and a brutal biting wind. Oystercatcher, Redshank, Cormorant, Mute Swan and Mallard were all braving the elements at our first site, but there was no sign of the elusive mustelid that we were seeking. We moved on and watched more wildlife in the grip of the breeze; Tufted Duck, Wigeon, Teal, Mallard, Gadwall, Red-breasted Merganser, Greylag Goose, Goldeneye, Great Crested Grebe, Lapwing, Sand Martin and a Grey Heron which had to contend with the elements as well as the unwelcome attention of a persistent mob of Black-headed Gulls.
Things weren’t looking promising; all of the birds seemed calm and bitingly cold winds often make finding Otters a tricky task. Another scan of the pool and there was a pair of Great Crested Grebes looking agitated…as an Otter cub surfaced in front of them 🙂 It surfaced and dived in the choppy water for a couple of minutes and then vanished, with all of the assembled waterfowl returning to feeding and drifting back into the area they’d vacated when the Otter was there.