TL:DR – We saw an otter preening on the banks of a local waterway in early Spring 2022.
A road that crosses the River Great Ouse a short way north of our village has the fabulous name of Twentypence Road. Downstream of the river is the Twentypence Marina where often you might espy Kingfishers darting about from branch to reed. Indeed, we parked up ahead of a country walk there and saw two within a couple of minutes of getting out of the car.
Upstream of the bridge is a nice walk that can take you along the edge of farmland to walk on the flood bank or you can head back towards our village along the Cottenham Lode. There is also a fishing lake surrounded by trees, which is often good for various bird species and beyond is a growing herd of roe deer to be stalked. However, today we took the north bank of the river and headed for the footpath beyond the riverside cottage.
It was in front of the cottage that I spotted a creature cleaning itself on the riverbank. An otter, or more precisely Lutra lutra, the repeated word, a tautonym, implying this species is the “archetype” of the Lutra genus. The species is often called the European or Eurasian Otter and sometimes that is qualified as River Otter to separate it from the Sea Otter. Anyway, it was a surprise to see it out in the open rather than simply catching a glimpse at a distance of a head ducking under the water. It made my day, as one might say.
Incidentally, otters are fairly closely related to weasels and stoats but also to seals, seals are certainly closer genetically speaking to otters than they are to dogs with which they are often compared.