And in non-bird news....

From time to time I have been known to write about things that are not birds on this blog. Sometimes I even get told off for doing so. Well, get a load of this!

Yes that is what you think it is, but it probably isn't where you think it is. You are probably thinking Shetland, or Fife, or Norfolk, or Devon, or...... The very last place you would probably guess is ON MY PATCH IN WANSTEAD. I can scarely believe it, but this Otter was on the River Roding here in Wanstead just yesterday.

It has in fact been here for several months but this is the first time I've seen it. I've dipped it a few times, cycling over to the Roding as quickly as I could after a sighting but always missing out. Yesterday Tony (thanks to whom for the picture as typically I was not carrying a camera) and I were birding along the river when I saw something dive distantly upstream. So brief was my view that I could not have said bird or animal, but about a minute later TB saw it, much closer to us this time, and I got on it. Yes! 

We stood as still and quietly on the bank as we could, in disbelief that we had just seen an Otter, and that only a few feet away people were playing golf, and just beyond that the roar of the A406 North Circular road. The river was very full after the recent rain, and it was hard to work out where it might be. A Little Grebe and a Moorhen flying up in panic were the best markers in the end. It surfaced a couple of times, the final time (when this photo was taken) clearly checking us out, and then disappeared. A magical moment and one I had not been at all expecting. Easily the best bird this year.