Went back to the new site today; literally within minutes of arriving I caught site of the mother with her two young cubs. There is a few hundred yards of tall peaty banks above the shore between me and the play full family, just on the waters edge on small pebbled beach. I slide down the bank so my silhouette no longer breaking the sky line to them, now with the bank behind me, with my camouflage I am pretty much invisible to the.
Extremely cautiously I move along the shore a short distance, before setting up my telescope to watch from a distance. Knowing the lay of the land here I know that after the bank slopes down to the flat of the beach, only a couple of hundred yards ahead, I would have no bank to hide bellow and she would be sure to detect the imposing human outline; I sit tight, able to view and enjoy the family, blissfully unaware of my presence.
I can see now that the mother has obviously taken them ashore a treat, a very large one; a lump sucker, which is almost a 3rd of the size of these young cubs. This is much larger than the prey a mother will usually bring back to shore for cubs, especially of this age, never the less it appears that it is being heartily enjoyed.
The larger of the two, I assume to be a dog, seems to be wearing the trousers here, as it seems to be doing all the eating, the other is more intent on playing with mother! After a while they take to the water, keeping very close together, the cubs almost continually calling as if they hate being in the water at all! I find it so endearing to watch their fluffy and very buoyant bodies on the waters surface. Iwatch them for a further half an hour as they follow mother in and out the water but I never see them dive, perhaps they are still learning.
