The river otter

Today we ventured out (something that's unusual in itself these days) for a walk in the countryside and chose the river otter as we'd not previously had a walk down its banks. We walked south from the village of Otterton and ended up near Budleigh Salterton (though the river estuary stopped us from reaching it and having an icecream). Luckily wonderful icecreams were to be found at Otterton Mill.



We saw a huge variety of wildlife including my first ever mayflies. Many were flying upstream,
some were spent
and a few were in the vegetation on the riverbanks



We also saw some warblers (species anyone?)

a grey wagtail

some swallows

and lots of other insects including damselflies, an 18-spot ladybird, caterpillars on the nettles

and these lovely beetles