A Lovely Lutrine Interlude

Today I have mostly been doing housework, including taking on the mammoth task of cleaning out the pantry. I found lots of weird and 'unwonderful' stuff, including, I'm ashamed to say, several items of 'food' which were at least three years out of date!! They just sort of worked their way into to the deepest darkest recesses and hid there, honest! Anyway, just as I was finishing one of my many tea-breaks I got a text from Steve, informing me that Doug Rudge was watching an Otter on the Borrow Pit. I knew that  'going for it' was probably gong to be a bit of a long shot but I felt like getting a bit of fresh air anyway and so around five minutes later I was at the Borrow Pit. I was delighted to see that Doug and Dave, the East Devon Countryside Ranger, were still there watching it. We had some superb views of it hunting for small fish, and devouring them on the surface. I'd brought my S3 along and took a few dodgy photos, it was extremely difficult to get anything at all because the Otter was always on the move and kept on diving just as I was pressing the shutter. I really could do with a faster camera (wishful thinking). Doug and Dave were building a new bridge on the Borrow Pit footpath, and shortly after I'd started watching the Otter they had to resume work. The hammering and drilling which followed (probably) soon caused the Otter to submerge and stealthily slip away. I'm not complaining though I'd had some great views and had to get back home anyway. Many thanks to Doug for putting out the news, and to Steve for passing it on. :-)

Most of my attempts looked like this, 'Otterless' but eventually I got lucky...

Ta-dah!

I like the fact that in this photo you can see the shimmering layer of trapped air on the back and the tail, which keeps the fur dry. Amazing!

Last but not least a  blurry close up shot of it chewing up a tasty morsel. Look at those fangs!