Wee love Otters

(CLICK ON A PIC AND IT WILL GO BIG)

Autumn is a wonderful time of year... The flocks of starlings, the crunch of leaves underfoot and no place to wee... In the summer its all fine.  The lush, green leaves hide all traces of me and my piddling. I'm like a careful ninja, never been seen in the act.  So far. But the Autumn is different.  The trees are just skeletons, there is no place to hide. This was illustrated by my encounter on London Drove.  You know when nature calls? You have to go, but where? I slipped carefully behind the wasted remains of an autumnal tree, looking left and right, all was safe. Wait! No it wasn't, but it was too late.  The cyclist went straight by and with true British charm, pretended not to see me... Sorry to him. Anyway, it was a dark, dank day. I tried to make the most of it, but it was hard to photograph anything and everything was black or dark grey. I managed a couple of Kingfishers and Great Whites.  But that was about it.

I was getting a bit bored and hungry. My sandwiches were still frozen. I stuffed them up my coat and hoped they would thaw at some point. I stopped to admire some large flocks of ducks milling about on the rough water and started chomping on my semi frozen sarnies. A GWE flew in and started fishing. Then I noticed a black shape in the water. Then it was gone. I wasn't sure if it was a coot or something better. Then it happened again. It might just be...

YES AN OTTER!.  We all love Otters.

Please excuse the shakiness and grinding off the auto focus. Its not quite National Geographic standard yet. Note the GWE who took a quick cameo half way through.

Even though it was miles away I was pleased as punch. I can count the number of times I have seen an Otter on just one hand. Actually I can count the number of times I've seen an Otter PLUS the number of times I have been caught weeing.

4+1 respectively...