An afternoon at Slimbridge

I finally managed to meet up with fellow blipper, Lozarithm, at the Wildfowl and Wetland centre at Slimbridge in Gloucesterhsire.  We have met there before, although not for some time, and the weather was reasonably good to us.  The sun shone intermittently but the wind was strong and quite cool, probably coming down from the north.

I wasn't feeling great this morning and now I feel a bout of lurgy descending, but it didn't cloud my day.  We pottered slowly about the site visiting a wide range of birds in different types of habitat.  What caught my attention was the tropical house at the  end of our tour because there was so much activity in the warm indoor environment and the small range of birds were flying a lot.

But our quick look at the otter pool and its small hillock was my highlight.  The three female north American river otters were constantly active and came up close to us probably hoping to be fed something.  I couldn't resist this pose by two of them just after they had clambered out of the water.  The third otter is beside them in the picture behind the logs and they stayed together whatever they were doing.  They even groomed each others fur at one point and seemed to cuddle up together.  

I must go to bed now but tomorrow I'll post a link to a Flickr gallery of a range of the birds we saw, including rare ducks, swans and some very active flamingos.

I will update this gallery very soon.
Flickr gallery of birds and otters at Slimbridge