The mild and damp winter has been beneficial to fungi, bracket fungi are proliferating on dead trees and branches.  Look for the bright red scarlet elf cup growing on dead wood on the forest floor.  This fungus fruits in early and late winter. 

Mosses and lichens have also flourished in the recent damp weather, lichens are composite organisms resulting from a complex relationship between fungi and algae.   They make great subjects for close-up photography.

Elder bushes are already sprouting shoots, as the countryside starts to turn green.

The elder tends to be a rather scrappy tree in winter, and not favoured in tidy gardens, but it is of major benefit to a great range of wild creatures. The flowers are wonderful early sources of nectar for insects, and the berries a great source of food in autumn.  Many rare moths including swallowtail lay their eggs on the elder. The rough elder bark harbours many insects, and the dead limbs support mosses and lichens. Currently you will see tits searching the bark crevices for food. In mythology an elder tree is thought to ward off the devil.

Mainly living on fish, otters will predate bird's nests, and even eat small mammals.  They breed almost all year round, having two or three kits in a litter, the holt often under a tree root on a river bank. 

Otter are well known for marking their territory with their dark oily droppings, or spraints.  Their presence is most likely to be revealed by finding the droppings, and their footprints are quite distinct from other mammals.  They have retractable claws.  An otter can be distinguished from mink by size, the mink being smaller than a cat, and a adult otter considerably bigger.

An otter recently made a surprise appearance right in front of the hide at SWT Catcott, seeing one  it is just a matter of luck, and patience.

The Tree-creeper

This intriguing small songbird is often hard to spot, subtly camouflaged against the bark of a tree, where it feeds by prising out insects and pupae from cracks and crevasses in the tree bark, using its long curved beak. The plumage is streaked brown on the back, and highly camouflaged, while the underside is almost pure white. But with the trees bare, there is a greater chance of a sighting. 

The treecreeper characteristically lands on the base of a tree, working upwards, and then dropping down to the next tree from a height.  It has a high-pitched, descending call, a bit like a wren, but less boisterous. 

When disturbed, it can run up the trunk at speed, like a mouse, using its large claws to cling to the tree. It may be seen with other birds such as tits, but the call will distinguish it,  once you know it.  They do not travel far during their lifetime, and have established territories.