A male Goosander with a lovely apricot tinge to his breast feathers was sailing down the river today. I walked along with him for about 100 metres while he just carried on paddling and looking around. I then had a lovely close encounter with an Otter. I saw it splashing in the shallows ahead of me and walked along to take a look. Just as I got to the water's edge it surfaced about two metres in front of me, dived right back down underwater but then re-surfaced behind some branches and had a good peer at me through the gaps. It then proceeded to plowter about under the riverbanks, leaving trails of tiny bubbles behind as it swam underwater from one bank to the other. What was most remarkable was that this all happened at 12:45 while dozens of teenagers from the local school were heading along the riverside path to the shops.