Christmas Lights and a New Year Otter 2nd January 2025

As is our custom myself and Mrs U spent Christmas and Hogmanay in Scotland. By way of a change we opted to forgo staying on our favourite Isle of Arran and rented a cottage on the mainland at a place called Arduaine (pronounced Ardoony) which is a collection of a dozen or so houses by the shores of Asknish Bay in Argyll on the west coast of Scotland.

The cottage, elevated on a bank from the road had a large picture window that overlooked the bay and from here, through my telescope I was able to watch a pair of White tailed Eagles perched on a distant islet out in the bay. What more could you ask for?

Being Scotland the weather was, as expected, dull, wet and extremely windy although strangely mild. Cosied up in the cottage, with the elemental sound of the wind roaring in the trees that rose up the steep hillside behind us we were happy to sit and admire the view with a log fire and a coffee or two for company. Later of an evening, it being dark by 4pm, came a malt whisky.

With Christmas over the weather changed, becoming markedly colder.and with the cold front came welcome but weak sunshine, something we had begun to feel we would never see. It's all very well feeling snug and secure in the cottage but there are only so many books you can read and with the arrival of the sun I began to get restless and felt an ever increasing urge to get outside.

This prompted us to drive to a nearby small village called Ardfern and from there walk along a deserted single track road for a mile to where the land joins the sea at a point called Craignish. Scotland in the depths of winter in this wild and rugged landscape cannot fail but inspire. The vast loneliness of land and sea created an intense feeling of place, a homeland where the heart is imbued with the myth and magic of this ancient and timeless landscape that makes you want to linger as if touching, however faintly, an inner sense of history and ancestry 

Out across the distance of cold grey sea and desolate fingers of land the snow covered and irregular peaks of the mountains and hills of Mull shone below an ice blue sky in the late afternoon's golden sunlight. The only sounds that broke the silence were the harsh calls of Hooded Crows and Ravens in the bare winter trees and occasionally the wavering otherworldy calling of a Great Northern Diver,far out on the sea and come here from Greenland to spend the winter.

We lingered here reluctant to leave on a day such as this which is all too rare in Scotland.A day insisting that every last minute be savoured as if it is the last

One last joy of surprise came when driving back to Ardfern a grey shape flew over the saltmarsh. A gull? No, it was a male Hen Harrier, a uniform soft dove grey, of body, head and tail with a gash of white rump feathers marking the join of tail to its slim body. It circled the marsh once, hovered with yellow legs extended then flew before us across the road and up above the trees to disappear over a hillside. It was impossible not to feel a sense of elation at encountering this beautiful, rare and sadly much persecuted bird. Our day was now complete.  

I have my obsession with birds and Mrs U is equally obsessive about the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights as they are also called and for two nights when the sky was clear there was a major alert about the Aurora being highly visible across Scotland.

Situated in almost the middle of a mountainous nowhere, we were in the ideal location as there was no lights of any sort around us just the dark slightly forbidding mass of a pine clad hillside behind us and the invisible black presence of the sea in front of the house.

Mrs U. not to be deterred  took to a track in the inklike darkness behind the house and ventured up the hillside when the aurora was at its peak, and below are some of the results she achieved of the spectacular show that spread far and wide across the firmament.

But you ask why is this blog titled as it is and especially about otters or an otter to be precise.Well  at the end of our stay at Arduaine we were invited to spend four days with friends who own a house on The Isle of Mull. Their house is situated by the single track road on the Ross of Mull that leads to Fionnphort where you get the ferry to nearby Iona.

The views from the house on its elevated position a couple of hundred metres from a sealoch going by the name of Loch Scridain  are spectacular. 

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On the opposite side of the loch the land rises up to the distant majesty of peaks, white with snow, while below the burnt sienna colour of dead bracken and moor grass covers a terrain that undulates down to the loch's shore.

Sat at breakfast looking out over the loch my wife remarked There's an Otter.

Sure enough it was swimming up the loch just offshore. Our hosts watched with amusement as I grabbed my bins and camera, struggled into warm clothing and boots and rapidly departed round the side of the house and down to the loch shore.

At first I could see no sign of the Otter and was perplexed at how it had disappeared so quickly. Familiar with the ways of Otters from many encounters on Arran I walked some way along the road in the direction of where the otter had been swimming. It could now go two ways, either the otter had been returning to its holt or was continuing its fishing. If it was the former there would be little to no chance of seeing it.

I was in luck as I caught a glimpse of the Otter now diving for food in the loch. still only a little offshore.I was standing on the road and by judicious stealthy movements slowly made my way off the road, through some gorse bushes and down onto the rocky shore, getting as close as I dared. It was a process fraught with anxiety as at any moment the otter might catch sight of me or my scent as due to the wind's direction and the location I had no choice but to remain upwind of it.Every time it dived I scuttled to the next rock or bush that would conceal my profile and get me closer.When the Otter surfaced I remained immobile. Once it was underwater I moved as fast as possible  to the next suitable place of concealment.

The light at this time in the morning was still dull and there was little time to check camera settings apart from when it was underwater. A first the images appeared too dark but jacking up the ISO I got better. All this having to be achieved in a matter of seconds and.with only partial success.

The Otter dived and surfaced, obviously eating something then it dived again and continued doing so for some minutes. Personally I find photos of otters swimming unsatisfactory as all you see are a head, its back and sometimes tail as it swims low in the water.

I duly took some images but was hoping that it would come out onto the rocks.Otters when they catch a large prey item often feel it is  easier to subdue on land and will make for the shore and then if you are fortunate you can get shots of the whole animal while it is eating its prey.

For some minutes the Otter carried on diving and eating in the water but then to my intense pleasure swam towards a rock, subsumed under a thick matt of wet seaweed and clambered out.It did not have any prey to consume and it became apparent it was intent on a bit of fur maintenance. It revelled in rolling on its back and squirming like a tickled child in the seaweed and then righting itself to lick its fur and attend to whatever part of its body it considered required attention.

The Otter continued rolling and slithering on its bed of rubbery seaweed appearing to be thoroughly enjoying itself. Ten minutes of bliss passed for both myself and the Otter before it rose and scent marked its place on the seaweed before creeping down to the water and sliding in, swam further out into the loch where.I lost sight of it behind some rocks. 

I ran back up the shore to the road and then down the road for fifty metres in the hope of intercepting the Otter as it swam onwards but there was no obvious sign of it

I then, in my haste, made an error of judgement as I was no longer partially concealed or with a dark background of gorse to reduce my profile. I saw the Otter very briefly but it must have seen me.

Otters when alarmed will dive unobtrusively and swim for many metres underwater away from perceived danger and even when they surface will only show the tiniest part of their hesd checking if all is clear

The last I saw of it was a tiny nose and part of its head surfacing ever so cautiously in the middle of a floating patch of seaweed and then just as cautiously sinking down again without a ripple.

It was over in a couple of seconds and I never saw the Otter again