Last Wednesday was a bespoke ‘truncated’ Otter Safari, booked as a retirement present for Joe. I collected Joe, Ann, Jess and Jack from Newton by the Sea and we made our way south to Druridge Bay. We had our picnic, overlooking the North Sea, enjoyed the graceful elegance of Avocet and Little Egret and then settled into position at one of our regular Otter sites…
Otters may be relatively common and widespread in Northumberland, certainly when you compare our county to other areas of England, but they can still prove frustrating. Many times we’ve watched all of the assembled wildlife behaving as if there’s an Otter present…without our quarry putting in an appearance. A strip of Amphibious Bistort seemed as good a place as any to start scanning; it should hold small fish and invertebrates, attracting larger animals that prey on them. Sure enough, scanning along the edge I came across the familiar ‘Loch Ness Monster’ shape of an Otter resting at the surface 🙂 We watched as it twisted, turned, dived and fed for nearly an hour, with Mute Swans, Tufted Ducks and Mallards watching warily and a Black-headed Gull swooping down each time the Otter surfaced. Eventually it went out of sight, but not before Jess took photos of it through the telescope…using a small compact camera 🙂 The journey back to Newton included not one, not two, but three Barn Owls. The middle of the summer may often be regarded as not the best wildlife-watching season that we have, but it produces the goods year after year 🙂