Otters and Flash Photography

Night Time by the River Soar

So there I was standing in deep snow at night trying to work out how to paint with light when this strange sound came from the river.  I look around and wonder what on earth the noise was.  Was it bird?  It certainly wasn't any bird call I had heard before.   I looked again and there in water not 10 feet away from me was a dog otter barking and calling.  At first I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  As I stood there the otter disappeared under water then reappeared and kept barking in my direction.   Normally, I wouldn't have been able to see what was causing such a noise as it would have been very dark.  However, with all the snow on the ground it gave the area a strange, luminous glow which was the reason I was standing by the river in the first place.   So there I was looking down on one of Britain's shyest wild creature and still it kept barking at me.  Eventually, the otter swam off leaving me to wonder what this was all about.

Otter Tracks in the Snow

I continued to make photographs.  As this was night I had plenty of time to look around between takes and I soon found tracks in the deep snow that were not made by the local dogs being walked in the park.   I followed the tracks and soon discovered that there hadn't been one but three otters near to where I had been standing.  This put a whole new completion on the matter and suddenly the dog otter's barking became all the clearer.  Instead of an act of aggression of a lone male this was probably the call of a frightened mother looking after her youngsters.  She was in fact telling her young to stay put whilst the threat, i.e. me, passed.  

Whether this was actually the reason or something totally different I doubt I will ever know but it was a real privilege to stand there so close to a truly wild animal.  Truly truly wonderful.

As for the photography this was a mixed.  I wanted to capture the strange light of night in the deep snow.  This I did.  I also wanted to start to practice 'painting with light'.   I had mixed results but then this is part of a larger experimental project for my Master's Course.  The most interesting thing I learnt this evening was that it is actually more difficult than it looks and I will have to think a lot harder about the set up etc.  Over the next day or so I will work on the images and see what they look like.  I will then be in a better position to judge how successful the evening's photographic exertions were.   However, they will never beat the nocturanl encounter with the otter.