Otters on the Isle of Mull - March 2011

I first went to Mull in 2007 hoping to come back with some great Otter photographs, but to no avail. I again went to Mull in 2009 and again, no Otter shots. This time would be different. I drove up and down Loch Na Keal for a week hoping to spot the elusive Otter. This I did with great care, lots of patience and attention to how these Otters behaved, I managed to get some great Otter photographs. Not only of the adult, the mother in this case, but of 2 otter cubs together.I had to move into position very carefully and quickly without the otters seeing me.This I did by observing when the Otters went under to catch fish, as they went under I moved into position, when they came back up, I hid and kept still as best as I could.The mother moved further out into the Loch and left the 2 cubs next to some rocks which I was hiding behind.It was time to go to work. I crept up to where these cubs were playing, aimed my camera only to find the shutter speed was going to be around the 1/30 to 1/150 of a second. With grey clouds, being 4.30pm in the afternoon,raining and the otters moving around very fast,getting a decent shot was not going to be easy. I set the ISO setting to 400 and put it on aperture priority. I took the first shots to test out the image quality and they were rubbish. I thought no, I am in a great position and the weather and light have dealt me a dreadful pack of cards. I can't sit here looking at rubbish shots, I have to get a move on and don't lose this great opportunity which I have been trying to acheive since 2007. Again, I crept into position with these 2 young cubs at first not knowing they were being photographed. I had to be at my best to keep the camera still. Inevitably, the otters saw me but luckily for me they didn't swim off after mum, they just kept around the area looking at me very inquisitivley. They occasionally kept still for me to get some good stuff. I took about 100 photographs, some of which you can see here. The mother started to swim back towards the shore, not knowing I was there. Then she saw me, and swam towards her cubs. At this point I left them alone so I wouldn't stress out the mother. The cubs looked as though they didn't mind me being there though. The next day I found another Otter on Loch Na Keal, so I tried to get some good shots of an adult on it's own catching an eel or something like that. These are in my gallery section on my website.