Scotland 2018 part 2: The Supporting Cast

Otter plus crab lunch

Although the otter catching and eating the crab was by far my best wildlife encounter during my five days in the Arisaig area of Western Scotland, there was plenty else going on in the natural history section.

Not least the five trillion midges that came over to pester me one still and warm evening. What sort of a creature is it that deliberately flies into your eyeball and voluntarily gets blinked to death? In their thousands. Their friends in the itch depatment are ticks several of which, despite my best efforts to avoid them, managed to find their way into various cracks and crevices about my person.

More of a threat to wildlife was the two Mink I briefly saw. Despite being very fluffy and floating high on the water they are adept swimmers and seem to dive as well as an otter.

Mink

I would have been disappointed not to see an Eagle and ended up with two. Sea Eagles are so incredibly huge that if one is around you really have to be pretty daft not to see it (or eyes down on your phone…..again). One was being pestered by Gulls on the south side of the Arisaig peninsular, the second sat in a tree at loch Moidart.

White-tailed (Sea) Eagle

The half dozen or so Great Northern Divers I saw were all nearly in full summer plumage. I’m not sure whether these are non-breeding birds that spend the summer here or that they are winter visitors that still havn’t headed north. I suspect most will soon depart.

Great Northern Diver

A pair of Red-throated Divers were fishing in the sea in front of my tent at Peanmeanach beach and flew back to their loch in the hills calling in classic, honking, ‘Rain Goose’ (their Shetland name) style. There was no rain in the forecast however, and I suspect they got this name in Shetland because it rains much of the time and there are a lot of breeding Red-throats there.

Trying hard to compete with the divers for snappiness of plumage were the Black Guillemots. I really like these busy little birds (although their movements verge on frantic) and unlike their southern cousins they have an extraordinary high-pitched whistle as a call note. A good sound for carrying distance on a windy day. In the video the second bird hasn’t quite finished moulting out of its winter plumage. (video)

 

The islands in Loch na Ceal near Arisaig hosted a lot of birds and the still and sunny weather enhanced the atmosphere. The main soundtrack came from the Oystercatchers. If they didn’t have such charisma I might be tempted to say what an appalling din. (video)

 

 

A pair of Common Terns looked like they were checking out somewhere to nest,

Common Tern

and a rather smart looking Common Gull was busy incubating her eggs beside a bouquet of Sea Pink. (could be a ‘he’ I suppose). Incidentally ‘Common Gull’ is a very bad name for what is NOT the most Common gull and is in fact an extremely neat and attractive bird.

Common Gull

I know it’s ‘only’ a seagull but I had to insert this video because I love the way the Gull settles back down to incubate its eggs so proudly and cosily with a contented shuffle and waggle of its tail. (video)

 

 

A pair of Ringed Plovers were a bit agitated as I passed so I guess they were nesting as well. They got a lot more stressed when a Great Black-backed Gull turned up with bird’s eggs on the menu for lunch.

Ringed plover

Arisaig’s most prominent residents are the Harbour Seals. There are a lot of them and they drape themselves about on low flat islets and their bawls and grunts carry far over the water. They enjoy nothing more than following kayakers in large numbers and diving with a splash. They are rather more photogenic than Cornwall’s Grey Seals, and have a more dished cat-like face. (video)

 

 

Heap of Harbour Seals

Posse of Harbour Seals

I saw one Grey Seal in amongst a colony at the mouth of Loch Moidart. It had a whitish blaze across its head.

Grey Seal

A trip to Scotland would not be complete without a Red Deer and I would have been surprised not to see one…..

but I certainly wasn’t expecting to see quite so many (tens of thousands)  Moon jellyfish wafting about in the clear waters of Loch Sunart. Accompanied by a few Lion’s mane and small white jellies with very long tentacles.

The other wildlife highlight of my early morning paddle on the smooth waters of Lochs Sunart and Teacuis was the sound of birds with the songs of Blackcaps, Willow and Wood Warblers drifting down from the deciduous woods on the bank. Plus the occasional Tree Pipit and ‘zip, zip’ of a Spotted Flycatcher. Didn’t see any of them . Plus the odd Cuckoo, which I did see. I could hear one calling from over a mile away.

Moon Jellyfish

Moon Jellyfish

The rarest bird I saw was not the most glamorous and a bit specialist to the ornithologist. This iceland Gull was hanging around the fish farm on Sunart.

Iceland Gull

It was so still most of the time that I could here the ‘coos’ of these Eiders long before I could see them.

Line of Drake Eiders.

It was time to head for home, a mere 650 miles away.

The seals waved me off:

 

 

 

 

 

 

2017. The Year of the Dolphin

2017 IN FIGURES

2814 miles paddled in total.

2400 in Devon and Cornwall

Winter Dawn on the Torridge estuary

183 in Spain (Costa del Sol)

Gibraltar (from Spain)

133 in Scotland

Loch Arkaig

100 along Rivers in England (Thames and two Avons)

September Thames

500+ miles of offshore paddling (more than a mile from the coast) in Devon and Cornwall.

6 trips out to the Eddystone Lighthouse

Yours Truly at Eddystone

1 Interception by the UK Border Force

Wildlife seen from my kayak in 2017:

1 Humpback whale seen. Horace, aka Doris, hung around the sheltered waters of Slapton sands in South Devon for an incredible six weeks in the Spring. I saw him (her) twice from my kayak, although the first time shouldn’t really count because he (she) was tangled up in a lobster pot rope.

Horace the Humpback takes a puff

33 days with Harbour Porpoises seen, a total of approx 177 individuals. Porpoises are very small and very unsplashy and easily overlooked unless the sea is flat calm. For every one I saw, I missed an equal number when all I heard was there ‘piff’ as they breathed, the sound of their breathing carrying long distances over the water.

Harbour porpoises

11 days with Common Dolphins, totally approx 171 individuals. Another 175ish in Spain. Several fantastic close encounters with groups bow riding when I could muster up the power to paddle at top speed. I need to eat more pasties.

Seeing Common Dolphins is extremely unpredictable and random as they range far and wide and usually keep well offshore. However the pods in Torbay around Brixham at the end of the year and running into early 2018, were the closest in, and most regular, I have known.

Common Dolphin (youngster)

3 days with Bottlenose Dolphins, totalling 50-80 individuals. Plus 8-10 at Chanonry point in the Moray Firth in Scotland, probably the best dolphin watching location in the UK.

Bottlenose Dolphins

A huge thrill on 18 Dec a couple of miles off Lamorna Cove when a proper ‘stampede’ of 30+ Bottlenosers charged directly towards me in a line all jumping out of the water simultaneously. An unforgettable image.

2017 was by far my best year yet for number of dolphin sightings.

7 Giant Bluefin Tuna sightings, all after 13 Nov. Amazing. I have glimpsed them on occasion before and seen the odd random splash but there seems to have been an invasion of them this autumn. Hopefully it means the baitfish are making a bit of a comeback which will mean more mega sightings of large fish-eating sea creatures.

Giant Bluefin Tuna

Four days with tuna at Fowey, with one extraordinary day with scores of splashes and fish jumping right out, one at Mevagissey  (double splash), one at Berry Head (double splash), and brief intense feeding frenzy off Lamorna Cove near Penzance.

Loads of seals. All Grey seals in SW England apart from one Harbour Seal near Portscatho.

Grey Seal pup

Harbour Seal, south Cornwall

11 Otters in Devon and Cornwall, plus 6 (before 6am on one day!) in Shetland. A poor year overall for otter sightings; there don’t seem to be so many on the River Torridge. ???

Otter

I saw otters on the Rivers Tamar, Taw, Camel and Torridge.

2 Mink. Nasty, nasty little creatures which have almost exterminated  Water Voles. Maybe this is a bit unfair because if you are a Mink you do what Minks do and can’t really help it (although leaving Water Voles off the menu would help the public image).

Mink (trying not to look too evil)

One on the Torridge, one beside the Thames in Marlow!

1 Sunfish at Fowey. There were quite a lot around this year, I just didn’t seem to bump into many by shear random luck (or lack of).

Also one off Gibraltar (also from kayak) on 10 March. A real whopper.

Gibraltar Sunfish

5 days with Portugese Man-of-War sightings, totalling over 50. A good year for jellyfish in general with nine or ten species seen, including the not so common, and unpleasantly named, Mauve Stingers.

Portugese Man o’War

Technically Portugese Man o’Wars are not jellyfish, they are Siphonophores. Likewise By-the-wind Sailors (another excellent name) are not jellyfish, they are Hydrozoa. However because I am a bit of a simpleton it seems sensible to lump them all together in one group because they are all jellylike and do what is expected of a jellyfish (i.e. float about and look like they might give you a bit of a sting).

6 Sooty Shearwaters, on four days. A true ocean-wandering seabird which nests on islands in the Southern Ocean. My first ever kayak-seen Sooty ‘Shears’ were the result of my concentrated efforts to paddle offshore this year. 5 seen near Eddystone, 1 near Land’s End.

Sooty Shearwater

37 Balearic Shearwaters, on six days. Scattered amongst the much more common Manx Shearwater, usually well offshore.

Manx and Balearic Shearwater

43 Storm Petrels, on six days from mid June to the end of August. 29 at Eddystone, 1 at Porthcurno and 13, several very close, on a rainy but fortunately fairly windless day off Fowey.

Storm Petrel

Storm Petrels are probably my favourite pelagic seabird I have seen from my kayak because they look impossibly small and vulnerable when fluttering low over the waves, yet spend all their time when not involved with nesting at sea scattered over the oceans of the world.

They are indeed vulnerable because they seem to be a favourite snack of Peregrines. I have seen a Peregrine snatch a Storm Petrel from just above the surface of a stormy sea off Hartland Point (not from my kayak). Probably a good reason why they usually keep well offshore.

5 ‘Bonxie’ Great Skuas. Another of my favourites, and a sensational encounter with one off Fowey on a calm and sunny day, only a few feet from my kayak. By far my best view in SW England.

Great Skua

6 Arctic Skuas . All near Torbay and no decent photos.

6 Puffins. All around Eddystone. The usual gang of dirty-faced immature birds in late Spring , and one (very unusual sighting, I think) juvenile on 21 Aug. A Puffling.

Juvenile Puffin

1 Black Tern In Mevagissey Bay with a load of Common Terns. Only my second ever from a kayak, and first ever half decent pic.

Black Tern

8 Long-tailed Ducks. An exceptionally good year and (yet) another of my favourites. The males are one of the most attractive sea ducks. This year I was treated not only to a superb pair at Porthpean, but also a hugely unusual drake in summer plumage on the Taw estuary on 29 Sept.

Drake Long-tailed Duck in Summer plumage

Drake (and duck) Long-tailed Duck in Winter plumage

1 Pink-footed Goose Another kayaking first , and actually I can’t remember the last time I saw a ‘Pink-foot’, even from dry land. Superb close view, in amongst some Canada Geese, on the upper reaches of the Fowey River.

Pink-footed Goose

Several pairs of Black-throated Divers in Scotland. The most beautifully marked UK bird?

Black-throated Divers

 

Kingfishers on 21 days. Everybody’s favourite waterbird.

Kingfisher

1 WILSON’S PETREL. I can still hardly believe this. The chances of seeing one of these from a kayak in England are as remote as Captain Sensible becoming Prime Minister. Ironically they are one of the most numerous birds in the world, nesting in the Southern Hemisphere and visiting the northern oceans in our summer.  A lot of birdwatchers spend a lot of time staring out to sea through telescopes hoping to see one but hardly any ever do. It’s only during storms that they are likely to be driven close enough to the shore to be seen, so when the sea is calm enough to venture far out in a kayak the petrels will usually be long gone.

So I was pretty lucky to see one a couple of miles from the Eddystone lighthouse, bringing back memories of the first one I ever saw with my father from the deck of the RMS St.Helena off the coast of South Africa, in 1989.

Wilson’s Petrel

Finally, 3 Favourite Scenes from the year. All great to look at from the depths of winter and give prospective kayakers hope that at least a few days next year might be warm, sunny and still.

1 Hartland Point

Hartland Point

2 Looe

Looe

3 Kynance Cove

Kynance Cove

Three Days on the Thames

I’m not sure why I like the Thames so much, when my favourite sort of paddling is the open sea. It’s probably because I spent quite a lot of time messing about on the river at Sonning in craft ranging from canvas canoes to tippy marathon racers, in days when I had hair and used to go trainspotting.

Paddling the Thames is about as relaxed as you are going to get in a kayak. The water is flat and the flow is barely perceptible.The only slightly turbulent water is when you are sitting in the locks. Everyone is very friendly because life on the water is a great leveller. And there’s loads of Kingfishers.

Typical Thames

I was dropped off at Donnington Bridge in Oxford and had soon inflated Puffing Pig II, my Gumotex Seawave kayak, which was to be my transport for the sixty-five miles down to Cookham. The Seawave is a pretty large craft but I wanted to take all my provisions with me as I have found before that there are not as many convenience shops along the river as you might think. This is actually seems to be true for most of the places I go kayaking.

So I was laden with food, and although I love camping I’m not that hard-core so take along a good thick self-inflating mattress, which also takes up a lot of space. Plus a load of spare clothes in case of disaster. And a fat book….Lord of the Rings (again) in fact, so you can see why I needed a big boat.

Thames River Cruiser

Up until Iffley Lock the river was chaos with a rowing race, but below the lock it was pretty much deserted. Just a handful of hire boats (with everyone on board, without exception, clutching a bottle), and a few big River Cruisers which announced their approach with the thump of a bassline from an eighties disco classic long before they came into view. Party goers lurched about on their deck (also clutching bottles). They were pretty pleased when I twirled my paddled in time with ‘Tragedy’ but I nearly dislocated my wrist when the blade snagged the water. Fortunately it happened at exactly at the same moment as Barry Gibb was doing his warbly bit when the whole song grinds to a halt before before the final triumphant (tragic) chorus, and I just about managed to make it look like it was all part of the routine.

Mid September is about as late as I enjoy wild camping in the UK as it is starting to get cold and it is pretty dark by seven. It is also frequently wet and my first day was no exception. I found a decent place to camp before Culham cut but as I was setting up my tent, while simultaneously trying to shoo away a herd of Aberdeen Angus bullocks which were slavering over my bag of pegs, the heavens opened. I dived into the tent and was pretty soon in my sleeping bag as there was really nothing else to do. Except have supper. I unwrapped my  (limited edition) Ginsters Beef and Tribute Ale pasty but was horrified to find it was still frozen even though I had taken it out of the freezer at home twelve hours previously.

Was I going to extract myself from my cosy bag and venture out across the stair-rod rain to get a packet of biscuits instead? No way. So I ate the frozen pasty. I just imagined I was eating some type of novelty pastry and meat ice cream and sort of enjoyed it. Actually I didn’t, it was disgusting. Luckily I found a Double Decker tucked away in my lifejacket to have for afters.

I had the Jetboil on for a cup of tea the next morning at the first whiff of light at six, and was on the water long before anyone else, having to operate the first couple of locks myself before the lockkeepers came on duty. The rest of Day 2 was uneventful and very pleasant and peaceful, if a bit cool and cloudy. I had a good view of a Muntjac deer which was grazing beneath the bushes close to the bank. Nice to see because we don’t get them as far down as West Devon.

Muntjac Deer

I camped at my ‘favourite’ spot beside a little sandy beach just beyond Goring lock. At midnight I was awoken by a lot of splashing and chattering noises with quite a few high pitched squeaks. Otters! I shone my pathetic torch out across the river but the snivelling beam never illuminated them, although the noises continued for an hour. I think there were at least two cubs because the squeaks came from two places fifty yards apart. A perfect location for otters with several islands covered in a tangle of bushes and trees. In the morning I found ottery footprints on the beach yards from my tent. Although it was a pity I didn’t see them it is absolutely excellent to know otters are thriving on the Thames.

On Day 3 I paddled through Reading and through a familiar Sonning, although everything looked a lot smaller than when I was ten. I took a prolonged diversion off the main river down the St Patrick’s Stream, which bypasses Shiplake lock, and then the Hennerton Backwater.

Henley

Henley was fairly busy with rowing sculls as usual, and drunken fools in zigzagging hire boats, but my attention was suddenly captured by a tussle between a Great-crested Grebe and a whopping fish. The fish was so large that initially it wasn’t entirely clear who was trying to eat who.

The drama which then unfolded over the next ten minutes is  the sort of extraordinary wildlife encounter that makes me pick up my paddle time and time (and time and time) again. It was absolutely gripping stuff, and all the more remarkable that it was played out within a stone’s throw from Henley bridge, with nobody else in any of the boats or the buzzing Angel’s Arms having the vaguest notion of what was going on. They were far too busy looking at screens and discussing Bake Off.

The Grebe held a twelve inch Pike in its beak. I would have thought it would have been a bit risky to mess with a Pike half that size, but to tangle with a top predator of that proportion is surely asking for trouble.

The bird kept changing its grasp on the fish and then tried to line it up to get the pike’s head in its mouth. This was initially unsuccessful and I assumed there was no way that the fish would fit down that neck. Wrong. Many minutes later all that was sticking out of the grebe’s beak was the tip of a tail fin, and soon that too disappeared. Absolutely amazing.

Even the local Cormorants were impressed.

Impressed Cormorant

I camped at the end of the regatta course and didn’t put up my tent till it started to get dark to avoid detection. Alas, as I was in my sleeping bag, reading about Bilbo’s eleventy- first birthday party, an official-looking launch pulled up and told me I couldn’t camp there. When I groaned in dismay he conceded to let me camp but pay the £10 mooring fee. I’m not sure that this was a good deal but it would have been a drag to move.

Next morning was stunning. No wind and a mist hanging over the water. The rowers were out early and I was scorned by a sculler in a GB team t-shirt who muttered that I was paddling on the wrong side of the river. As I switched sides I was nearly bisected by a coxless four who suddenly appeared out of the mist.

Misty Henley

I had a relaxed run through Marlow and was approaching my destination at Cookham when I saw a small lithe black beast scampering along a pontoon.  A mink, in the middle of Bourne End! It had a fish in its mouth and scurried into a bush. I stopped and waited and it soon reappeared and stared me out, with those beady black eyes. I have been scrutinised by quite a few mink before and they have such evil intent that it makes you feel a bit uneasy and want to cover up your jugulars.

Mink

In wildlife terms they are public enemy number one and it is mink that have exterminated the endearing little Water Vole that used to be so common along the Thames when I was growing up. The characteristic ‘plop’ of a vole jumping into the water was a familiar sound. On this trip I didn’t see a single vole.

I watched the mink for fifteen minutes as it scurried about, eventually emerging out of the bushes with the tattered fish in its mouth. I got the impression it (the Mink) was a youngster as it acted in a sort of teenagery manner.

Mink with Lunch

I hadn’t been expecting that much wildlife action in the tail end of the year, so the grebe and the Mink were an unexpected surprise.

After four days on the water, the sight of a Red Kite floaing over the river hardly made me look up. There were absolutely loads of them and the rather weedy mewing call from this years offspring could be heard more or less continuously during my trip down the river.. I still can’t believe they can all find enough to eat. A major success story as a few decades ago there were none in this area.

Red Kite

Thames trip over.

Marlow

p.s.   A couple of my Grebe-eating-the-pike pics were printed in The Sunday People newspaper, with a suitably over-the-top headline:

Grebe pic in The Sunday People

 

 

Otters

Otter at Applecross, Scotland

Otters really ‘do it’ for me. Watching an otter is always an absolute thrill, as they are unbelievably difficult to see and are nearly always in an extreme wilderness environment. And kayaking along long stretches of coast or riverbank in complete silence has got to be the best way to see them.

They are largely nocturnal and so the best time to see them is very early in the morning when some are still larking about after a late night out. This suits me just fine as I really like the early mornings.

It is only in the remotest and least disturbed places that otters can be encountered throughout the day. I would estimate that 90% of all the otters I have seen from my kayak have been before 9am. I get the impression that dull damp days encourage them to get out a bit more, and I have rarely seen them in sunshine.

Dogs are otter’s number one enemy, and it is amazing that otter-hunting was only banned in the UK in 1979, although ironically it was the otter-hunters who noticed the catastrophic crash in numbers, due to pesticides, during that era.

Since then the population appears to have recovered, allowing otter watchers like me to have a pretty decent chance of an encounter.

I have been very fortunate to have seen may dozens of otters in the sea off the west coast of Scotland and a handful in the Scottish rivers.

My one kayak trip to the Norfolk Broads proved successful with a decent encounter in Barton Broad.

And down here in Devon and Cornwall the otter population is very healthy. Appropriately the Torridge, made famous by Henry Williamson’s Tarka, seems to have the greatest numbers. It is just perfect for them, with clean water away from any significant town to clutter it up or pollute it , and fifty plus miles of wooded bank and very little access to the public, and their dogs.

Perfect otter habitat on River Torridge

Torrington is about the only town and that seems to be nice and clean. I have seen an otter quite happily fishing  just below the outflow from its sewage works.In fact the bridges over the Torridge at Torrington and their brickwork and large blocks beside the river seem to attract otters and maybe provide homes for them.

The weirs on the lower Torridge are a magnet for otters and I have seen them eating eels which I suppose are concentrated around the obstacles, as are other migratory fish such as salmon. Beam weir beneath the Tarka trail cycle path is reckoned to be one of the best locations in the country to observe otters.

Weir on Torridge…..otter heaven

I have also encountered otters fishing in the upper tidal reaches of the Torridge when I have paddled up with the tide from Bideford. Never further than a mile or so downstream of the absolute tidal limit, and never yet in the muddy estuarine area.

The same applies to the river Tamar where I have regularly seen otters, always early in the morning, in the upper tidal section of the river below Gunnislake weir. I have only once seen a dog otter below Morwellham quay a couple of miles downstream of Gunnislake weir (the tidal limit).

Fat Tamar Otter

I have watched a pair of otters on the river Taw and come across a single dog otter on the River Tone east of Taunton.This was particularly memorable because I silently drifted into a bush beside the bank as soon as I saw it, and then discovered that the otter had done exactly the same thing and was snorting warning calls from the depths of the bush only a few feet away from me.

Only twice have I seen an otter in a proper estuary around the southwest. Recently on the Camel half way between Wadebridge and Padstow, and several years ago near the china clay terminal at Fowey (as usual at dawn).

Otter on Camel estuary

I have yet to see one in the open sea in Devon and Cornwall but it does occasionally happen and I have seen otter tracks on open exposed beached near Boscastle.

Although guilty of trying to get too close for that classic photograph in the past, my number one aim when I see an otter now is to try to watch it without causing any disturbance to it, and to ‘get past’ without it knowing I was there. Not easy on a narrow river. If an otter detects your presence it will disappear immediately and you will not see it again, apart from the occasional one in Scotland that comes up underneath the seaweed, thinking it is invisible.

Otter attempting concealment (unsuccessfully)

Otters have an excellent sense of smell and hearing but poor eyesight. Or maybe their eyesight is good but they are not too worried about what they see until their smell or hearing send out alarm bells.

I watched one munching its way through a salmon on the bank of the Torridge as I was sitting in my kayak tucked in on the opposite bank, twenty yards away. The otter was quite happy until I reviewed the photos I had so far taken, and the very faint ‘peep’ the camera made as i scrolled through the images caused it to look up and stare hard at me,  even above the roar of the rapids. Fortunately I was downwind, otherwise it could have had a REALLY nasty shock.

Torridge otter with salmon

Amazingly, and possibly irritatingly, my best and most clear otter photograph wasn’t taken by me at all.

Mid December 2009, and I was sprinting along the canal in Bude in my racing sea kayak. It was just getting light. I thought I was going at quite an impressive lick so was a bit surprised to be overtaken by a string of bubbles at the surface. An otter popped up in front of me and swam to the lock gates to munch a fish it had just caught.

On the spur of the moment I turned my kayak around and sprinted back to my car, left the kayak on the bank, drove 10 miles back to my house Holsworthy, and dashed indoors to wake up my son, Henry, to tell him to come and see the otter and maybe get a photo. Not easy, but he was bundled into the car and we drove back to Bude. I dropped him at the far end of the canal and told him to walk along the towpath to meet me paddling towards him from the other end, so if the otter was still in the canal we would pincer it somewhere between us.

I then drove back to my kayak and paddled off towards Henry, this time definitely going at Olympic speed because I was so excited. After 2 miles flat out, and 2 portages, I found Henry standing on the towpath a few yards from where I had dropped him off. Exasperated that he hadn’t walked along to meet me, he explained that the otter was just where I had dropped him off, and he showed me the photographs. Stunning. Clear and perfect.

Henry’s otter on Bude Canal

He then wanted me to take him home. All I had to do was paddle 2 miles back to pick up the car…..

I havn’t really got a better photo in the rivers of SW England since. Otters tend to be seen in conditions of poor light and under dark riverbanks, so it’s always a struggle with aperture, shutterspeed and sharpness of image. It’s a bit easier in the open air of the Scottish coast (but not much).

Dog Otter on Mull

For me seeing an otter from my kayak is just about as exciting as seeing a dolphin way offshore in the summer.

Even catching a glimpse of one is a huge challenge, and for every decent view I have had, I have had many more of a tail disappearing below the surface…and no more.

Typical view of vanishing otter

However if you are lucky you can see one diving and fishing in the open river a long way ahead, and they are so active that they cause a fair amount of disturbance at the surface, which can be seen from afar. They literally slither through the water and can move amazingly fast. My most recent encounter on the River Torridge involved three otters that were porpoising along in mid river. As they headed off downstream it was all I could do to keep up with them, paddling flat out a couple of hundred yards behind them so I wasn’t detected. I eventually overtook them as they took time out in a riverside bush. they didn’t notice me. Excellent.

Trio of porpoising otters on River Torridge

When groups are involved, especially families with cubs, my attention has sometimes been drawn to otters by explosive high-pitched squeaks which I think are calls from the adults, and quieter squeaks from the cubs. In Scotland I have heard otters bark a sort of snuffling call when they are uncomfortable about you being there.

Otter cub

I am never quite so excited to see Mink, although they are significantly rarer than otters. I would guess I see one Mink to every ten otters. Hopefully they will all be trapped and soon be gone as they eat anything that moves, and have single-handedly caused the near extinction of the likeable little Water Vole.

Since escaping, or being released, from fur farms Mink have spread the entire length of the country. I saw a couple in the most remote part of Western Scotland, fishing in the sea (the Mink, not me). When disturbed they have the gall to actually swim towards you to get a better look at who or what is interfering with their routine, staring you out with beady little black eyes.

Silver Mink

Brown Mink

So otters very definitely get the thumbs up from me. Mink don’t.

Close encounter, Kylesku Scotland