It's getting 'otter

 It sure was at Cresswell on a wild and windy first day of restriction easing on Monday. Despite the "fresh" (as described on BBC weather, more SEVERE GUSTS in my book) wind the birds on the Budge showed reasonably well. Notables being pairs of Pintail, Lesser black-backed Gull, Black-tailed Godwit and a single Avocet. 50 plus pairs of Shoeveler, the highest number i recall seeing here, were spread around all of the site. I absolutely HATE windy days and didn't fancy the walk up to Chev so returned to Cresswell where i had seen 18 Avocets north of the causeway on the way up at first light, Apart from the Avocets, which were hunkered down on the sand bar, only a male Red-breasted Merganser caught the eye as everything else was tucked away on the western shore. Thinking "I'm not going to be here long and i'll head down to the beach and shelter from the wind" i was expecting to be on the move however two Otters appeared and proceeded to play fight and feed for the next 90 minutes with the exception of twice when they disappeared into the reedbeds for around 10 minutes each time. Obviously wonderful to observe as they moved to most parts of the pool BUT never came reasonably close to the hide. No complaints here. They were still around when i left as a couple of folk had arrived in the hide and that was the signal for me to exit. Despite the fact that an unbelievable number of people seem to think things have improve re this pandemic i am still social distancing and disinfecting an surfaces i come into contact with. No ease up as far as i'm concerned !!!!

Here's a quite heavily cropped image of the otters who might be last years young 'uns judging by their similar size and antics. There might be a few more to follow. Also i quite like this image of some of the Avocets that must have move to the north end of the pool and decided to relocate back.