Balance

The weather for this tour was particularly unpleasant but you just have to plough on. There was a bit of a struggle to see the WT Eagle youngster at the nest so we moved on from there with a promise to return later in the day. We watched a Cormorant attempting to swallow an Eel. It got there in the end but it's interesting to watch the fish try to escape after the Cormorant has closed the escape hatch! There are still quite a few Golden Plover around, Greenshank numbers can be different every day ( we saw one on this trip), and it was nice to see a fully fledged juvenile Curlew hiding in the sedge.

We were looking for somewhere to have lunch and to look for Otters when I had a hunch that we should look in another area first. We were just about to leave that area when two Otters appeared.

They were quite nervous, keeping a careful eye on all the traffic that went past, but they were fairly relaxed as we kept our distance.

The rest of the afternoon was just as exciting as we got good views of Skylark, Lapwing, Raven, Ringed Plover and a couple of Snipe. The top sighting of the day had to be the Mole that we rescued from the middle of the road! A return to the WT Eagle site was a real bonus from the day as we got good views of Sparrowhawk, two Golden Eagle and one of the adult WT Eagles.

After the balancing act, above, the bird finally settled down to give superb views. What a  finish to a miserable day!