A grand day out

Finally managed to arrange a day out with my mate and birding comrade, Jason Atkinson http://at2h.blogspot.com/ to photograph otters. For a few months now we we have been trying to fit in a day that I would take Jason to one of the sites I visit and at last we nailed it, and a splendid day it was too- Seven Otters in total and we only covered half the site. It is quite common to visit that site and see double figures in a day.
The seven animals (three seperate encounters)cosisited of a fine dog and three families, two mothers with single cubs and one with two.

15th March

Had a close encounter with this dog otter today. Walking along the shore-line, a good distance along ahead of me, I picked him up swimming towards me, quite a distance off shore. The water was still and my attantion was quickly drawn to the bow waves of his wake. The tide was very low, leaving many reefs and rocky out crops exposed, one in particular is where I was almost certain he would be heading for. With this in mind i moved quickly as he dived under water (each time having about 15 seconds before he surfaced).

i managed to get myself tucked in and blend into the barnacle covered boulders, as usual, head to toe in camo clothing. I judged it well, each time he surfaced it was clear he was indeed coming straight for this rocky outcrop, one of his favourite haul ups. Many a' time I have watched him do exactly this, perhaps to doze off and curl up on the seaweed; taking a fish to shore to devour or maybe even just to spraint/sniff, read the signs and keep moving.

He stealthily approached, occasionally slipping underneath the blades of exposed kelp before emerging onto the rocks only 20 meters away. With the wind 'on shore' I was confident he would not pick up my scent, instead he went about his routine, sniffing the spraint points on the rocks, no doubt reading the many signs otters leave one and other using this method. He spainted and urinated on two seperat points then carried on his way in the direction he had been heading.