Otter Miss

After a damp, grey start, this morning turned bright but with a brisk southerly touching force 7 at times, an ideal day to spend an hour or so sitting on the end of the small headland below our house to watch whatever happened to pass....

....but, as I approached my favourite spot, I bumped into what I had most hoped to see, a large otter which had just emerged from the waves. For a second we stared at each other then, as I scrabbled to extract the camera from its case, he dashed back towards the sea.

For an hour I soaked up the sun, watched the waves and....

.....the passing ships - this is the Scottish Fisheries Protection vessel Jura keeping a close eye on the CalMac ferry Raasay whose crew were, presumably, doing a bit of illegal fishing on their way across to Kilchoan - and....

....the steady stream of very sleek common gulls all flying upwind. I waited, very patiently, but the otter didn't reappear.