Them be Otters, them be...

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure (understatement) of watching 3 otter in the Nature Reserve I used to live at.. Having never seen any Otter in the wild before, you can imagine how pleased i was.. Still smiling now!

I used to live next to the Reserve for a year, had heard of Otter being seen, but these sightings were very few and far between.. I had tried, as had friends and neighbours, but no luck.

Local friends had recently got lucky.. Rainy days seemed to be the best days to try. So with that in mind (and dipping once on a sunny day) a predicted rainy day off was identified and off we went..

Within 5 minutes, success.. Movement was seen in the water and there they were... 

2 Otter swimming on the far side of the lake !!!

Enough waffle, here are some pics and video, if it will load...

Baby Woodpeckers!!

Spring has sprung and to my surprise - yesterday morning I was greeted with the site of 2 baby GS Woodys in the garden..  I have had 3 regular adult visitors for some time now, but genuinely didn't think they were breeding due to pretty much always being in the garden..

Anyhoo.. the noise made me look outside (not that I don't spend all day looking outside anyway)..and there on the fence were 2 chicks asking to be fed.. First mum, then dad took turns in passing them peanuts from the feeders.

At certain times throughout the day there were 2 adult males and 2 adult females in the garden, on the fence / feeders, so that indicates that there are a minimum of 6 birds now visiting..  

This is gonna be expensive..

But I'm not complaining.