MONDAY mornings normally mean the weekly supermarket shop but the spring sunshine was too enticing this week, so I made a detour first to Conwy RSPB Reserve.
Out of the wind and in the warmth of the sun, it really felt as though spring was finally springing.
On the grassy banks, cowslips were emerging and in the damper patches, the willow trees were beginning to bud.
As I walked along the boardwalk, a male Reed Bunting was calling its rasping song from a tall reed above my head, while over to my left in the scrubby bushes, a Chiffchaff was calling its distinctive chiff-chaff song.
I walked as far as the Carneddau hide which looks onto the second lagoon.
There were plenty of birds close in here: Canada Geese and Greylag Geese to my left, Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Lapwings on the islands in front of me.
But something about their behaviour was rather odd.
The geese were standing motionless, necks upright, heads perfectly still all facing in one direction, totally focused, like sentries on duty.
Something had caught their attention and they were on full alert.
Then the gulls lifted off the islands and wheeled overhead, circling tightly, calling in alarm.
Was there a Peregrine about?
I craned my neck upwards looking to see what was causing the fuss.
Nothing obvious, but then movement in the water caught my eye.
Two dark humps emerged and then disappeared back down into the water, like a mini Loch Ness monster.
I watched the spot to see if the humps would reappear.
Then beside the nearest island right in front of me, two heads popped up: not one, but two otters!
A brief glimpse and they submerged again. This time I had a trail of bubbles to follow, and before long, their two backs humped up out of the water side by side as they swam along strongly.
They disappeared from my sight again but the gulls still circling overhead gave the game away.
Another pause, and then once again, two heads broke the water, this time slightly further away.
There was a ripple and a roll in the water: were the two otters play-fighting?
They dived again, and came up one last time near the far side of the lagoon, their streamlined bodies breaking the water smoothly before disappearing from sight.
The gulls stopped their alarm calls and settled back down on land to preen themselves back into calmness.
The otter show was over.
This isn't the first time otters have been seen around here. Last year, birders following a rarity just upstream on the River Conwy may have missed their bird, but had the reward of seeing a dog otter instead.
And the warden at Conwy RSPB has apparently caught glimpses of one on the reserve a few times before.
Last year, Conwy County Council installed an artificial otter holt on the reserve, so perhaps the pair I saw had found it and moved in.
With a ready source of fish to eat in the lagoons of the reserve and the much-improved water of the River Conwy itself, maybe they'll stay and even breed here.
Wouldn't that be fantastic! Getting a little 'otter in Conwy, and nothing to do with global warming!
I've never seen two otters together in the wild before, and was very excited by the whole experience.
I'll have to go back to the reserve to look for them again.
Still fired up about my close encounter of the furry kind, I dragged myself away to the supermarket.
Fish for tea, I think.
