I went back at first light to retrieve my infrared camera left in position last night to hopefully capture some Otter footage. I had left a Sardine in a spot that I know the otter likes and left the camera primed.  My reasoning was that the Otter would come out to spraint, find a nice free fish, trigger the infrared video and stay to eat the fish, all the time recording the whole scene.  No……. the plan didn't come together. Pretty sure the Otter did come out of the water to spraint, in fact I know she did, there was evidence everywhere. The fish was gone so when I boughtt the camera home I was pretty excited and expectant that the whole thing had been filmed. Unfortunately it hadn't, the camera didn't trip so it was blank I am afraid. Still there is always tonight!

I went  a tiny bit earlier for the Kingfisher and after a very short while there he was with the biggest minnow I have ever seen. Even he seemed bemused by it and was treating it very carefully before he smashed it a few times and then eventually gulped it down. (You can see a watery,  bloody patch to the bird's left where the poor unfortunate Minnow came to his end.) As is often the case the light was a bit subtle so it was hard to freeze real action but these two shots above are a bit special I think, a great couple of additions to my hundreds of kingfisher photos, you can se the best of them here in my Kingfisher Gallery.

There may be more to come here on the blog later as the weather has brightened and I plan to go out and try for more this afternoon. In the meantime here he is with the big minnow.

A few from a late afternoon session when the late was fading but I had, yet again,great views and an awesome experience. He knew I was there but didn't care!