Sunday 21 February 2016

Inland Seal

I’ve heard of seals being spotted in the Great Ouse near Swavesey before but all the times we have walked there I’ve never seen one. Until yesterday. It was swimming up a channel, happily diving under and coming up a bit further along. We thought it was a dog at first as there was a family coming towards us, It swam by, looked up before diving under again. Needless to say I missed it with the camera and not wanting to disturb it too much by following we let it on it’s way.

It is not actually that unusual at all to see seals on the Ouse, although it’s about 40 miles from the sea they are curious and follow the boats, and I guess there is less competition for fish.

Note: Sadly it was reported about a week later that a dead seal had been found.


Just as a record this morning we also saw buzzards, Goldeneye, Pochard and Wigeon.

Goldeneye (M)

Sunday 14 February 2016

'My' barn owl

Our third sighting of the barn owl now when we've visited West Stow so it's now, of course 'my' owl! Today having parked outside the country park we spotted him through the trees - he's incredibly easy to see now, so bright against the dull trees, and yet people parked up their cars, dogs got out to be walked, people intent on their day he went mostly unnoticed. Except of course we were already on the look out in case he was around. Just after the photo below he took flight, huge wings flapped only once or twice then he disappeared down into the heath before taking off again and disappearing out of view. So incredible.