Radipole Otter sighting

Here's me account of my otter sighting over the weekend.

One of the great wonders about watching the natural world is you simply don’t know what to expect.  You can walk for miles and miles and see nothing, or walk round the corner and see something which will stay with you for the rest of your life.  For me, Sunday was one of the latter days.

Having been told by one of our new volunteers (on his first day!) that he had just been watching otter, we had to go take a look.  We hurried off down the path and, as we got closer to where Bob had seen the otter, footsteps that had, moments before, been crunching the grit underfoot, now fell silent as we crept along the verge.  Voices that had been raised seconds ago, were now silent – we spoke with gestures, but all for nothing, he had gone!

We were about to head back the way we had come and then, there, in the middle of the lake, not more than 30 metres from where we stood, the otter surfaced – and looked straight at us!  I simply could not believe it. I stood there, transfixed.  With cars racing past, behind me, the roads, shops and buildings of Weymouth all around me, I stood, routed to the spot, looking at a creature that I have spent my entire adult life wanting to see.  Watching him, watching me, a self assured, but somehow, at the same time, vulnerable look upon his face, was an experience that will stay with me till the day I die, a magical moment I doubt I can ever better. I cannot begin to describe how I felt, simply that my heart was fit to burst.  It is, perhaps, fanciful to believe we made eye contact but, for just a second, I felt something, a connection? I don’t know but, for that brief moment in time, nothing existed but that otter and me – WOW does not even come close!

Although it seemed like forever, we watched him for perhaps 10 seconds before he disappeared into the reeds and was gone.  The experience was over, job done and time to move on…..or so we thought. Then, just a few seconds later, he surfaced again, heading upstream, and the chase began!

As we watched he started to move along the edge of the reeds, hunting.  Sometimes the only sign of his passage was a line of tiny bubbles breaking the surface.  Other times, a bow wave, sweeping along the reed edge, showed us where he was heading and, every so often, just to prove it was him, he would surface, to grab a breath and check the coast was clear.

Watching him swim it was hard to tell where the water stopped and he started. So lithe were his movements, so perfectly did he fit in with his environment that, sometimes he would barely break the surface, little more than his eyes and nose visible before he slipped below again. Other times he would ‘porpoise’, starting to dive by poking his head below the surface but, in one tremendous, slow, graceful arc, his whole body and tail would follow, seeming to take delight in showing how slick and smooth he was - oil, or poetry, or both, in motion!

For nearly twenty minutes we followed him upstream, always at a distance, always giving him space to feel safe, but always within view, until we got to the gate to north hide.  Standing there gives you a great view up and down the river and sure enough, there were the tiny rows of bubbles that told us he was heading our way.  As we stood on the bridge, looking up and down the river waiting to see where he might come up for air, little did we know just how close we would get.

As we watched, the bubbles got closer and closer and then….disappeared!  Frantic glances up and down the river revealed nothing, had we lost him?  Then, as we stood there waiting, he surfaced beneath our feet, under the bridge, less that a foot below us and, with a exasperated splash, was gone.  I don’t know who was more shocked, him or us, but, as his wake moved down the river again, we were thankful for a glimpse into a magical world, made all the more special because it happened, not in the wilds of the west country, but in the middle of Weymouth, at Radipole Lake!

There have been many times over the last few weeks when we have heard splashes or seen waves and speculated on what they might have been – now we know!  So, next time you are at Radipole and hear a ‘little’ splash, or see a bit of movement in the water when the wind is still, or see a line of reeds moving when the rest of the reedbed isn’t, stand still, watch and, if you are lucky, you might get a look at our amazing otter…..if you are luckier still, he might take a look at you!