A Shetland otter family in late Novemeber

Had a very busy and enjoyable week working on three different Otter families last week. Each of these three are mother and two cubs. The sites are very busy during this time of year as most locations are very active with mothers and cubs who all most forage during the day and as the nights draw in, this means they must work all the harder. At the moment I am mixing my time in the field around eight different Otter families and have another half a dozen sites to visit over the next week or two. Here is a sequence of one of these families from last week. The sequence shows a typical behaviour in their daily routines of foraging, playing and grooming at a lye up on the grass before they rest.



 

Here's a selection of images all taken this week. A very , very challenging week of westerly gales and often driving rain but some fantastic otter activity, behaviour and encounters. We saw a total of 18 over the five day Otter photography one to one itinerary.

 

For more information on my Otter Photography one to one itineraries http://www.shetlandnature.net/otters/otter-photography/

 

Life is busy and it only seems to get more so- work and of course family commitments leave little room for anything else- but this I would not change- life is very good indeed! One thing however that never changes is my time with Otters here in Shetland. In fact this is what the majority of my day to day working life revolves around and so I am immensely fortunate to spend such special time studying otters.

What has changed is my 'at the desk' time, hence the lack of postings on my Otter blog. I think I said it in a previous post that now with the ever changing social media world, most of, if not all my postings are on Facebook   https://www.facebook.com/shetlandnature and even with that I am not the most frequent 'poster', there is just no time....

Any how, in a bid to freshen up and revive me'old Otter blog I thought Id post an image or two from some of the last few months, starting with yesterdays encounter, a mother and her two young cubs in gorgeous golden autumn evening light......

A crazy, crazy day but has to be said about as perfect as it could have been. Leading a one-to- one photography itinerary for Simon Hawkins just now, we did an early start to work on sunrise and found an Arctic Warbler whilst doing so and I found a Baltimore Oriole whilst on an extended lunch break! A mega rare American vagrant, only twenty  odd records in Britain! Later we met up and set out again but this time to work on Otters, Simons main target for the week. Spent a couple of hours with one of my regular mum and two cubs- the two squabbling over who gets the catch here....

British Widlife Photography Awards- a 'highly commended'

I was delighted to be awarded a 'Highly commended' for my Otter awakening image in this years BWPA.

Fund raiser for the IOSF

Otters are not only a huge part of my life, they are a huge part of my working life and are therefore my main focus in the guiding and photography workshops I do in my company. I feel it very important to do something in return for otters on what ever level I can (or we at SN can), whether on a local or international level. We are corporate sponsors of the International Otter Survival Fund and are delighted to support the wonderful work they do for otters all over the world.

To help support this and their annual International Otter Awareness day in late May we ran a fund raising event to help raise money by doing a 'Sponsored Otter search'. Along with the help of fellow Otter addicts Gary Bell and Richard Shucksmith we set out individually to see how many otters we could see in a day- what better way to spend a day?!

In total we raised just over £800 and were delighted and overwhelmed by the response and support we received, read more about the day on my Shetland Nature blog:
http://www.shetlandnature.net/2013/07/24/otter-awareness-day-fundraiser-for-iosf/

BBC's Countryfile TV appearance, tracking Otters in Shetland...

I was thrilled to be featured on BBC 1's Countryfile with presenter Ellie Harrison tracking Otters here in Shetland. Working with the Countryfile team was a really exciting experience and I was delighted and proud to have been part of the very popular episode on Shetland, and especially so to have been approached to work on my heart felt favourites. Better still was that even though against the odds, with just two hours set aside to shoot the Otter slot, I managed to score for them. Read more on our Shetland Nature Blog   http://www.shetlandnature.net/2013/07/12/countryfile-on-shetland/