Otter delight

Getting up at unearthly hours, sitting motionless in a draughty hide for hours at a time and scanning the water until my eyes ache. I’ve tried them all in an attempt to catch a glimpse of an otter at my local nature reserve, Paxton Pits. I have spent a grand total of forty hours looking for these elusive animals since I moved to the village: a statistic I’m not sure whether to be proud of, or not!

You might ask yourself, ‘Hasn’t he got anything better to do?” It’s a fair question. After all, I’ve seen otters before, but seeing one on my doorstep is a whole new ball game. It has become the holy grail.

The sun came out yesterday and full of vim and vigour, I took a walk around the pits. Lots of other people had the same idea and the first hide was a hub of activity.

Small children failed to contain their excitement at seeing the prehistoric shapes of cormorants and herons; their parents apologising for the youthful over exuberance. I didn’t mind. I can think of nothing more enjoyable than seeing others getting excited by wildlife - apart from seeing an otter at Paxton Pits.

I’d been in the hide for half an hour enjoying the wide variety of water birds on show when a gang of geese and ducks began swimming purposefully away from the bank. Something had spooked them. 

A few minutes passed before a passable imitation of the Loch Ness monster surfaced, making my heart race and concentrating my gaze on the far waters of the lake. After what seemed like an eternity, it emerged again. I raised my binoculars in time to see the sleekest of bodies sliding beneath the blue waters again, flipping a long tail as it went. The holy grail was mine at last.

I was ready to announce to the world (well, everyone in the hide) that an otter was on show, but it never showed again. The moment was all mine. I smiled to myself that I should complete my quest at the busiest time of day on the busiest day of the week, when I wasn’t even looking for otters! There's a lesson there somewhere...