Looking for the Otter: Unexpected, Surprising, and Curious Encounters
A backlit otter from September this year.
I’ve always found it very difficult to even find otters, let alone photograph them. Most of my encounters have been by chance, at unexpected times (one which stands out being an otter bounding through a badger sett one evening!). Whenever I’ve actually set out to look for them they’ve proven to be very elusive and I usually only find signs of their presence - such as spraint. Even when I have seen them, it’s usually been from quite a distance.
But this all changed last year.
When I went on holiday to the Isle of Arran with my family last year, I was obviously quite excited about what I could photograph there: red squirrels, common seals, red deer, golden eagles, and black guillemots are just some of the species that can be seen on Arran. But top of my photographic list was, of course, the otter. My best previous otter encounter came on Arran a few years earlier when I spotted a female otter with her two cubs, swimming out at sea. I knew that they were here.
The tricky thing about trying to spot otters around both Edinburgh and Glasgow is that these inland otters tend to be more nocturnal than the ones which spend more time in coastal areas. But on Arran, the potential to see otters during the day is huge because they are found all around the island’s coastal areas. We stayed on Arran for a week, in Lamlash, and over this time I gradually got to know the hunting patterns of the local otter. I managed a few half-decent photos (see above) of this otter but nothing quite like what I was hoping for (I really wanted a shot of an otter out of the water).
About halfway through our holiday, we spent a day on the beach down at Kildonan on Arran’s south coast. Whilst my sister wanted to go swimming, I had my mind set on otter hunting (in a non-violent sense). Kildonan is well known as a great spot for regular daytime sightings of otters so I knew there was a good chance of at least seeing one. I reckon I’d been walking up and down the beach for around an hour before I had an instinctive urge. This urge told me to climb over a rock at the edge of the beach, and peek round the corner of another rock which jutted right out into the sea. I don’t know if this was luck, or whether the time I’d spent looking for otters in the past helped me to predict this behaviour, but I did in fact find an otter sitting right on the edge of this rock, munching on an eel.
A close encounter with a greedy otter on Arran.
Of course, because of how close I found myself to this otter, I fully expected it to sense me and quickly slip back into the sea. But it was very windy that day, and the wind was blowing towards me. This meant that the otter couldn’t hear me over the sound of the wind, and it couldn’t smell me as the wind was carrying my scent in the opposite direction. I was invisible. Otters do have some eyesight, but my silhouette was hidden against the rock behind me, and it was too busy excitably munching on its eel. So, I lay down and took a lot of photos over the next half an hour until the otter eventually returned to the water and disappeared.
Fast forward to January this year, and my hunt for otters continued, motivated by a desire to get the perfect otter photo. My search, surprisingly, led me to the Union Canal in Edinburgh. In fact, in the last couple of years, Edinburgh has actually become a hotspot for daytime otter sightings as the formerly elusive creatures have become less and less nocturnal. The Water of Leith, which flows through the city, has a very healthy population of otters and this has led to many urban sightings. Figgate Park, near Portobello, had very regular sightings of an otter family last year, and, more recently, a mother and her cubs were seen very often on the Water of Leith. In both cases, the otters were surprisingly comfortable around people, with the Water of Leith family even swimming towards people at the edge of the river. This family, however, looking for a new supply of food, eventually ventured up to the Union Canal where they offered onlookers many close encounters.
An Otter in the Union Canal
Obviously, I had to check this out for myself so I ventured up one weekend. I spent around two hours walking up and down the canal and was about to give up (the football was starting soon) when I saw a trail of bubbles moving slowly towards me. Up popped an otter. I spent around 20 minutes with this otter and took a few pictures of it popping its head up. It was a really strange place to see one, but these urban sightings are becoming more and more common.
In September, the urban sightings continued. I had heard about numerous close-up sightings of an otter at a site near the city centre. I was working a lot, however, and going back to Glasgow soon, so I’d kind of accepted that I might not get to spend any time with it. But with some encouragement from a friend, an early start, and my mum’s car borrowed from her, I managed to spend a sunny morning with this incredibly friendly otter. I was very lucky that, five minutes after I arrived, the otter was swimming within a few metres of me, hunting for small fish in the loch. He even swam directly towards me, probably trying to work out why I had a big telescope in my hands. Over the next half an hour or so I was able to get some front-lit shots in the early morning light, and some backlit shots against a shadowy background. I was pretty happy with the photos I achieved.
It was a great day, and the early parts of the morning were very peaceful. But of course, one negative of otters inhabiting urban spaces is that there is increased chance of disturbance or irresponsible behaviour. A few questionable things I saw were people following the otter around the loch, letting their dogs into the water, and crowding around it making a lot of noise. One woman even tried to call the otter over to her like a pet! Fortunately some signs have now been put up around the loch advising people on how to behave around these animals. Hopefully they continue to show up in these urban spaces and we can continue to live in harmony with them.
My hunt for otters still continues now. I still don’t have what I would call the perfect photo and so I’ll keep on trying to find otters and take any opportunity that I might have to photograph them. At least this gives me an excuse to keep tracking and watching these fascinating animals.
(For more otter-related content I’d recommend checking out Miriam Darlington’s book - Otter Country. Also, for some really good examples of otter photography, checkout these accounts on instagram: @jrwildlife @shetland_nature . And finally, checkout my friend’s instagram account - @clairegouldphotography - she has some really nice footage and pictures of the otter that I photographed recently.)
