It's been another fairly quite week at Loch of Strathbeg, not helped by days like today where the fog was so thick you could barely have seen the visitor centre let alone anything outside it!
The unusal quiet around the centre is also down to the island being almost emptied of Black-headed Gulls and Common Terns. It would have been a difficult season for them to raise chick anyway but the Otters that Cain blogged about a couple of weeks ago has been returning regularly and has now cleared the island almost entirely of chicks and eggs. While the gulls and terns have been unable to chase them off, the Otter finally met its match on Monday night in the sape of two Mute Swans.
The swans had clearly spotted the Otter as soon as it headed towards the pools. They gathered all of their cygnets into a group and guarded them while the Otter searched the island. Tom and myself then watched as the cob swan swam over to where the Otter was hiding on the shoreline and viciously attacked it several times, before swimming back to its mate and the cygnets, flapping its wings and preening and generally looking very pleased with itself and its otter-pecking prowess.
While you have to make a very late evening visit to see the otters in the flesh (around 9.30pm and later), we have got some amazing footage of them on the hidden camera and you can see that by visiting the centre at any time.