Beaver watching

 My daughter was visiting and fancied looking for the Beavers in Devon so we arranged a few hours at Bicton gardens followed by an evening on the river Otter at Otterton.

I had been here a few weeks ago when a brief view at dusk produced a photo that was frankly more of an artists impression than an identifiable image. I was really delighted, therefore when this animal appeared in front of the assembled crowd (well 6 or 7 people) at 7.15 pm.

Before that we had been entertained by a series of rapid flash-pasts by Kingfishers, a surprise Dipper flying upstream and a family of Grey Wagtails going the other way. I had also, much to my surprise, heard a party of Crossbills fly over.

The Beaver did not stay in view for longer than half a minute or so. but I fired off a series of shots.

We then stayed for a further hour and were well rewarded. First the female appeared under some bank-side vegetation and we could hear it gnawing loudly.

She then moved off downstream and after a while a kit reappeared and played briefly with an apple

One or other of the kits chose a dark cave under the bank to climb out and have a long scratch, all visible with bins but not amenable to a photograph. At least not with my camera.

One of several swim-byes enabled my daughter got a brief video but everything after the first sighting was too dark for me.

Giving up at about 8.15 we walked back to the road bridge where we noticed another Beaver playing with some low lying branches mid-stream, just visible in the gloom. All in all though an excellent experience.

I have seen European Beavers, several times on my Latvian trips but never in such good light, or doing so many things in an evening. I am sure that I will be back next year.