Unexpected!!

The heavy overnight rain has all but washed away the snow - just a few remnants left here and there. I decided to have a walk round Thorpe Meadows before the floods arrived, but when I arrived about lunchtime my usual route was already cut off. The completely saturated soil means there is no lag time any more.

Just after I left the car-park I was very surprised to see this common seal Phoca vitulina swimming around in the Rowing Lake. I quickly changed lenses and managed to get one or two images. It was within about 5m of a well used path and at least twenty people walked past and didn't even see it, despite me having my telephoto lens trained on it!

It disappeared for a while, and I eventually saw it moving over the flooded weir and into a backwater of the River Nene. I suspect it's the same individual that was spotted a couple of weeks ago in the river near Asda. In due course I'm sure it'll make its way back through the Dog-in-a-Doublet sluice to the tidal river, and from there to the Wash and North Norfolk coast which support the largest colony of common seals in the UK, with some 7% of the total UK population.