A surprise

I'd been watching a red kite that had appeared over the Marshes today, when I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye, and saw this chap swim into view. All the waterfowl became suddenly very nervous and hightailed it to safety.  

I knew that there were Otters on the reserve, as they routinely take eggs from the nests of waterfowl such as the Great Crested Grebes I blipped the other day.  I was really excited, as I've never actually seen (let alone photographed) an Otter in the wild before, so this is a first for me.

Unfortunately this otter didn't hang around but swam across the water in front of me and disappeared.  This was the best view that I got, and the otter is frustratingly swimming slightly away from me, rather than towards me as I would have preferred.  But even so, it's an Otter! :-)