Happy seal!

After dropping Alex at the station to catch the train to Newcastle, where he's spending the weekend with his oldest friend, I came home and finished another report (only three to go now!). Then it was into Peterborough for a meeting with the Conservation Officer of the local Wildlife Trust, to discuss possibilities for survey in 2013. There was a good selection of sites, including three small woods, the rest of Brampton Wood (which I started in 2012) and two meadows. I'm particularly excited about the prospect of doing Upwood Meadows, a National Nature Reserve with a very fine display of green-winged orchids.

After a rather late lunch I took Rosie for a local afternoon walk - unfortunately my usual route is still heavily flooded so we had to conent ourselves with a rather boring grassy field. There's a short stretch of raised path close to a backwater of the river on the way to this field, and as I walked out I had a feeling I was being watched and thought I saw something submerge as I passed. When I looked more closely there was a little grebe in the area, so I decided that must have been what I'd seen, even though something didn't seem quite right.

On our way back I spotted the seal again, happily swimming around at the end of the backwater, where boats often moor. The light wasn't very good to get a shot, and there were bushes in the way, but I hung around for a while anywayy. All of a sudden it emerged from the water with a sizeable fish in its mouth. It then proceeded to play with it, tossing it up in the air several times, before chewing it up. I got a few shots, but this was definitely the best. If you look in large you can see its sharp canine teeth and the fish scales on its bottom lip. I'm not sure how long it'll stay, but it certainly won't starve!