I said I would go birdwatching yesterday. And I did. There are four types of geese in this photograph: greylag, Canada, punk-footed and Brent (much the smallest). There are also ruff, lapwing, black-tailed godwit and snipe, plus a good variety of ducks like mallard, shoveler, gadwall and teal.
But the best sighting of the morning was a mammal. This otter put in an appearance:
That was a real, and rare, treat at WWT Welney, which is our regular Saturday haunt.
And then in the afternoon I was in Ely, thinking about how to write an infographic on money, which may well be the hardest I might ever need to tackle.
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I hope the weather is nice in Ely on 3rd October for a bit photography in the morning.
Well done with the otter.
The forecast looks good
Beautiful photographs. It’s nice to be reminded that the country of my birth isn’t all doom and gloom. Despite being a devout atheist I love the architecture of these great cathedrals ( like many, I cried when Notre Dame burned having been there only once) and regret never getting to see the timber-framed spire at Ely in the mere 46 years I lived in England. Maybe next year when I hope to visit family in Manchester?
That is the timber framed tower.
Punk-footed geese, the mind boggles!
I like that
A new breed
Thank you for sharing your great photographs. An otter!
I’m the right generation to love a punk-footed goose! I’m picturing them pogoing wildly over the plains.
We often say we go goosing – by we just mean goose watching. That is a definition of relaxation.
Wonderful footage of otters in Simon King’s Shetland Adventure last night on BBC Four.
I hope you have seen this
https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2026/sep/25/margaret-atwood-birds-conservation-optimistic-future
Ravens sound fascinating and I am no birder
We get them occasionally in Welney.
I am more familiar with them in Wales.
They are very big next to a crow.
Look for the diamond shaped tail, too.
I live on the banks of the Clyde about a dozen miles upstream from Glasgow. Until Thatcher closed the upstream steelmills at Wishaw and Motherwell, nature didn’t have a sizeable presence on the river. The effluents from the steelmills were so toxic nothing could survive for long in the river. The only good thing I’ve got to say about Thatcher and her politics is that, in killing off the steel industry, she unwittingly restored nature to the Clyde.
The first sign was the return of river plants (about 2 years), followed by river birds (everything from kingfishers to herons, cormorants, ducks, geese and swans, freshwater fish, otters and, for a brief spell, even a young seal. One spring morning we saw a heron on the opposite bank strugging to swallow an eel. The eel’s head was in the heron’s mouth but it had wrapped its body round the heron’s neck. The fight went on for about 15 minutes, in which we could see the tussle with the eel’s head gradually getting further down the heron’s throat. Eventually the heron managed to swallow the whole eel and for a brief period it staggered about as the eel slowly died inside. After about 10 minutes standing on the bank (presumably exhausted) the heron staggered down to the water’s edge, swallowed a sizeable amount of water and then withdrew into long grass – all thanks to the ruthless Maggie Thatcher.
I like it!
Excellent Otter photo – I remember one once on the Norfolk Broads (Wroxham Broad when the broads were a lot quieter than now) an otter poked it’s head up onto the wooden landing jetty – a treat to watch.
And only a few years ago in the Pavilion Gardens in Buxton (High Peak) the park keeper found a young otter stuck in the sluice from the boating lake to the river – he rescued it and took it home where he fed it a tin of sardines (yes – I checked without tomatoe sauce), he phoned the local wildlife people who took it and it eventually arrived at the Otter Trust in Devon – a very frightened young otter who became a rather spoilt one!
🙂
This one looked very fit and healthy and really quite big – well over 1 metre.