With Luis busy, I took an unexpected opportunity to walk the Rio Sella with Be the other day. After sighting the otters for eleven consecutive days, Be was pretty confident that we would see at least one of them for a brief moment at least. After walking for 30 minutes or so we were beginning to feel disappointed and decided to watch a goosander as it navigated a small waterfall and rapids. Suddenly Be waved her lens at me and shouted, in a whispery sort of way, to look down river. Sure enough he (the dog otter) was there. Surfacing and diving, bringing bites of food to the surface, turning on his back and chewing away.
His constant dives meant he was hard to follow as you never knew where he would surface. He stopped, several times and look straight at us, probably to assess the threat but fortunately, carried on and became more adventurous and confident.
He surfaced with a medium sized eel and carried it off to the far bank at the foot of the fall, where he devoured it with gusto. Occasionally he stopped and checked his surroundings by sight, smell and sounds. He circumnavigated the rocks and waterfall on the bank, disappearing into fallen trees and reappearing as he plopped into the water on the topside.
We watched, photographed and filmed his antics for up to 30 minutes, losing him from time to time but locating him when water was disturbed or ducks flew.
I have more film but the files are just too big to load with our limited bandwidth.
