Otters in the Bay

On a calm day, we can see if there are otters in the bay below the house, and it's then a matter of....

....getting down to the bay as quickly as possible and, moving cautiously and only when the otters are under water, making our way to the end of the headland and hiding behind a rock.

One morning early, a few days ago, our efforts were well rewarded, but not entirely in the way we had expected. The otters behaved perfectly, one of them catching a large crab and, because they have difficulty dealing with large prey out in the open water, bringing it to land, with the other otter in hot pursuit.

They came out onto the rocks but, instead of setting about their meal, they hesitated, and then....

....started to move towards the water, stopping to look back....

....even when they were in the water, as if the land was really where they wanted to be.

I assumed that they must have heard the click of the camera but then....

....something else attracted our attention, something which the otters had spotted long before us.

Mink are cheeky. We've had mink approach us when we were picnicking on the beach, and this one looked as if, having lost a crab meal, he was intent on checking us out instead.

He stopped just below where we were, and looked up at us. We stood up, and he turned and headed into a heap of boulders.