Some real drama in the garden at lunchtime today! The weather has been intermittently, cloudy, rainy and sunny and in between one of the sunny periods I sat in my office and did a bit of work on my gallery see here. There was a noisy commotion coming from the back garden and I chose to ignore it, this was a big mistake because when I eventually went to the kitchen, I immediately saw the body of a Dove on the roof of one of my wooden garden buildings. A Collared Dove…… with no head. Sitting above were two "heavy" looking Carrion Crows eyeing up the carcase. Further investigation revealed a scattering of freshly plucked feathers and skin where the Dove had been plucked by a sparrowhawk no doubt. Who carried the half eaten body to the roof I will never know. 

What is for sure, I missed a big photo opportunity,  unfortunate as it is that the Collared Dove was taken.  In the reasonably bright weather I was hoping to get some nice photos of Goldfinches, Chaffinches and hopefully Siskins but there was not a bird to be seen, obviously spooked by the experience.

More Otter Tracks and now Spraint

Later on I went down to the brook. Now that the flood water has receded. I was hoping to see Otter signs in the fresh "virgin" mud. I did more than that. Under the bridge I discovered really fresh clear tracks made in the last few hours.

 Investigations revealed a "spraint" pile. This is where the otter had scrapped the mud together in to a mound. At the top, in typical otter fashion, was a lovely little deposit of shiny,greeny dark otter spraint.

 It was fresh as a daisy having been deposited even during the day. I took photos as you can see and also brought some spraint home for further investigation. Even more exciting was the loud splash I heard from behind me, I turned to see ……… nothing ……… but I am pretty confidant that I had actually disturbed the otter only yards away and the splash was him diving in to the water to escape detection…….. my first Alphinbrook Otter encounter, it was a close one! I had been told that this spot is a sprainting area so it is also a good place to position a camera trap in the future. It was a very exciting end to an interesting if not, "almost" kind of a day.

All of these tracks are made by the otter, the disturbed mud is the heap prepared by the otter and the footprints are otter tracks.