The Elgin Otter

When we headed to the River Lossie, alongside Elgin, I had not expected to photograph an otter in the  environment I did. I have been lucky enough to see otters in the wild on a number of occasions. Most of my views have been when I have been in Shetland or on my trail cameras at Yew View, alongside the Severn.

We walked all along the Lossie, close to Elgin. Otters are often seen along this stretch of river, despite its close proximity to shops and houses. The otters have become accustomed to people, which makes it a great place to possibly see and photograph them.

It is a lovely stretch of river and I couldn’t help but hope for a view of an otter within the beautiful reflections of the beech trees…

We looped around and headed back towards the car park, with no views of otter. Our last chance was the pond in Cooper Park… just a short dash over the grass from the river. They have been seen a number of times fishing in this pond. As we neared the pond, a couple coming the other way, cameras in hand, told us the otter was there!

This pond is surrounded by paths, dog walkers, close to a large and busy carpark and there, amazingly, was the otter! Diving regularly in the shallow water, this otter was eating a lot, but I am not sure what it was eating from the bottom of the pond.

The sun was very low in the sky by now and was also in front of us, making photography a bit of a challenge.

What I found particularly incredible, apart from the location of this otter, were all the people walking past who were totally oblivious of this very special visitor! What a treat!



from www.wildlifekate.co.uk https://wildlifekate.wordpress.com/2019/10/27/the-elgin-otter/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2019 off to a reasonable start

Image
Overcast, 5°, light NNW. A Little Egret seen today on the way out to Lollingdon and appeared to drop down near Amwell Spring. The hill hosted around 100 Fieldfare and a flock of c50 Meadow Pipit for a time before moving off over the top. Several Reed Bunting and Yellowhammer around the hill and a single Corn Bunting . A small flock of c20 Pied Wagtail feeding out with the Sheep. A few more Fieldfare and Redwing scattered around the Lollingdon area, a Goldcrest , Grey Heron , Kestrel , a couple of Jay , 2 Bullfinch and several Starling amongst other species. A Brambling in a private garden. Per Alan Dawson. 2 Blackcap in TW’s garden and 2 Chiffchaff at CSW. The flock of c60 Golden Plover still around Cholsey Hill. Brambling (courtesy Alan Dawson) from Cholsey Wildlife https://cholseywildlife.blogspot.com/2019/01/2019-off-to-reasonable-start.html
Read more

A Butterfly day

Image
Another sunny day, 24°, light E. A walk alongside the Bunk line from Church road to the bypass. Butterflies were the order of the day with literally hundreds of Meadow Brown on the wing today. They were everywhere. Another 8 Painted Lady seen with some looking very tatty after a presumably long flight and ageing. Best one of the day was a single Silver-washed Fritillary seen flying around a large garden before disappearing from view. Good numbers of Marbled White all along the route. Other species noted were: Small Skipper , Large Skipper , Large White , Small White , Green-veined White , Brimstone (1), Brown Argus (3), Common Blue (8), Red Admiral (6), Small Tortoiseshell (c20), Comma (3), Speckled Wood (2), Ringlet (12) and Small Heath (2). Some thistles were in flower on the edge of a bean field and these held the majority of Painted Lady , Small Tort and Marbled White . Dragonflies: Banded Demoiselle (M&F), Large Red Damselfly and Southern Hawke
Read more

A Great Start to 2020 at Yew View – Tawny Owls & Interesting Feeding Station Meetings!

Image
We had a great year at Yew View last year, with lots of great wildlife and some amazing insights into the lives of our local wildlife, especially our lovely Tawny Owl pair who raised  their beautiful owlets to fledge into the garden. We built an otter holt, with cameras and encouraged as much wildlife as we could into this 7 acre site. We have lots of exciting ideas and projects for 2020, of course. Hopefully, after months of high river levels, we will get our otter holt up and running with its two cameras. It has spent more time under water than above water so far and the cameras are sitting up in the office, waiting for the river to be stable enough for me to feel confident about reinstalling them! We are also going to upgrade some of the cameras we have, as well as creating some new feeding stations. We have a new piece of land that is also going to be developed for wildlife this year….. a large pool and boggy area for dragonflies and damselflies, wild flower meadow, tree planting
Read more