Mar 6th, 2014

Author: marionmccune

Otter in our pool!

Today we had another major thrill. Our second webcam (after the success of ‘shedcam’) is ‘pondcam’ and this is where anyone following the blog will have seen the video of our heron. But I was never expecting to see the pictures we got from it this morning. About 4am a long sinuous creature swam rapidly across the pool, glanced around and then ducked away under the water, clearly displaying its distinctive tail – an otter!
This has made our week because in our wildest dreams the best we were hoping to see on this camera were deer coming down to drink. Also I don’t think anyone knew for sure that there were otters in the Donich – so that is now confirmed (I have seen otters in the wild in Shetland, and this was definitely an otter and not a mink).

Our pool is about 8 meters across and more than a meter deep – so it is less than a loch but bigger than a garden pond and big enough for quite a number of creatures so it will be interesting to see what else turns up there as spring progresses. There is definitely no point in putting fish in it though – the old lady we bought the house from said that when she tried putting fish in they all disappeared – and now we know why.

At least with the current weather we don’t have to worry about it drying up….