I wouldn’t usually post a photo of a captive animal when I have perfectly good bee photos that I took in the garden at home before setting off out, but R and the Boy Wonder met the otters at Slimbridge for the first time this afternoon, and were enchanted with them.
We’re having the Boy for the weekend again because his mother is currently busy running the Cardiff Animation Festival, and his father is busy running the Baby Brother. When we took possession of him in the car park at Slimbridge B wasn’t sure whether he wanted to go into the reserve or straight back to our house, but finally he decided that he needed some lunch. After which he decided that we needed to go outside for a few minutes, just to play – though no, he wasn’t ichrested in Welly Boot Land today – but oh look – what’s that? So we walked a bit further, and he spotted something else, and we walked a bit further still, and he checked if I thought each bird we passed was pecky or not, until we arrived at the flamingos. and had a bit of a chat about them. At which point I calculated how close we were to the otter enclosure, and asked if it might be inchrestin’ to go and see if they were playing outside? Which as it turned out, it was.
The last time I bothered noticing the otters at Slimbridge they were North American River Otters, and they were rather elusive and boring animals, other than at feeding time. They’ve now been supplanted by a pair of captive-bred Asian Small-clawed Otters, which is an endangered species that Slimbridge (in keeping with Peter Scott’s original conservation vision) is aiming to help preserve. Whether this pair will breed or not I can’t say, but there was quite a bit of nesting activity going on in their enclosure this afternoon. They’re rather charming creatures, not apparently shy of humans, and when they weren’t ripping up reeds and grasses to carry into their holt (which is partially viewable via a series of mirrors) they spent a lot of time on this carpeted platform, grooming, cuddling each other, snoozing, or simply gazing out at the people beyond the glass barrier.
Every time B asked me a question about the otters or one of the objects in the enclosure I tried to answer as simply and accurately as I could, but every answer seemed to elicit an immediate “Why?”. At one point, after about the tenth “Why?” on the trot, another woman sitting nearby caught my eye, and said, “Good luck!” A bright three-year old is a joy, obviously, but they can be just a little bit… exhausting.
