It's been a couple of hard days photography wise. Yesterday was a clear bright day, a break in the weather, Monday was wet and windy and today, Wednesday is forecast to be stormy again. I parked myself by the water at Venford as previously with sun at my back. I had had a wonderful day last Thursday, really special and productive with some brilliant close ups of Goosander, Little Grebe and Cormorant. It was a real disappointment though, oddly no Goosanders on the lake whatsoever. After 2 hours, the 1 cormorant present had grown to 3 but they were all resting high in the conifers close to the edge of the water. In the far distance I caught sight of a Little Grebe, almost certainly the single bird I had seen last week. The reason for my visit was to try for pictures of this bird, so although it was good to see it was there, I was disappointed not to be able to get some close up photographs and it never did come closer than 100 meters. The lack of success makes good days all the more rewarding.
I just wanted to make some comments about a conversation that I had with shop workers and customers in the angling shop in the city. I wanted to know what their feelings were about the potential damage that Goosanders may or may not be doing to fish stocks in the waterways of the county. To a man they hadn't even heard of the species let alone know that they feed exclusively on fish. I can't imagine working in a shop that caters for outdoor pursuits and yet not be aware of such a well known species. But Otters, that was a totally different thing. I can honestly say that we are well on the way to a battle over Otters. As you may know they have made a massive recovery here in the West Country and conflict with anglers is now inevitable, in fact the conflict has already begun. All of the people in the shop agreed that they would like to see the Otters killed and removed from the waterways here around Exeter. I was horrified that this could even be contemplated by anyone, let alone with such unanimity. To my mind, the otters were here in Great Britain well before anglers and they should always take precedence. If the presence of otters means the end of angling as we know it, then that is an unfortunate but inevitable fact of life. The thought of shooting/trapping and killing of otters is abhorrent and it is selfish in the extreme for anglings to be calling for this to happen. The thing that worries me is the strongest and loudest voice will endure and I suspect that it will be easier for anglers to unite. There may be more people who have a more general interest in wildlife but they may not be able to "come" together as a unit to get behind the otters to save it from a stronger more vociferous minority. Very worrying.
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