Tasty new fish species

Here we have whats known as a Brill and a Ling. The Ling is a member of the cod family and tastes great. Cod are being comercially fished to the extreme, so think twice before buying it. The next time you visit the fishmonger ask him for some Ling. If you like Cod, you'll love this!

Brill

Handsome eh!

small Ling from Innes crab creels

Otto loved this!

Otto's first taste of real freedom

It's New Years eve. As usual I went to spend time with Otto but today was different. Today was a milestone. I decided to take a huge gamble and let him out. Otto is very trusting of me now, so today is the day. I prepared myself and opened the enclosure door. With the lure of some tasty fish he was out. As soon as he was outside, he started making high pitched chirping sounds. These sounds are used to let mother and cub keep in contact with one another. Within a couple of minutes he was investigating his new found freedom. He stayed close to me and when presented with some fish, he would take it back into his enclosure to eat it. My main worry was that he would take off...he didn't. He was in and out several times and always stayed close to me. This is a giant leap for Otto, and the first step in his leaving home. I will do this every day now, little at a time until we can venture further afield. Hopefully soon I can show him the bay and all the wonders it holds.

A fantastic day indeed........Happy New Year to you all :)

first smell of freedom

up and over...

nearly there...

Freedom!!!

out and about

Brave New World

Swimming!!!

My family have been over for Christmas so a couple of days ago I introduced them to Otto. The weather has been terrible...well at least for us humans. Constant wind and rain.
When I went into Otto's enclosure, he was in the pool! This is what i've been waiting for! Brilliant!

I fed him some fish as he jumped in and out of the water... like a real Otter!  He seemed to be having the time of his life! 

Now that he is a "Water Otter", i'll have to think about getting the large pool ready for him. He is coming out a lot more now during the day, which is also great.

Well done Otto.

What you looking at?

KFC

I keep Hens and they are very curious about Otto. Something tells me that he is more curious about them!

 

 

 

Otter Curling!

For the last 2 days everything has been frozen and Otto has taken up Curling! After breaking up the ice in his swimming pool I decided to scatter some around. He loves pushing the ice around the place, using his bristly nose like a brush...very funny indeed.

I have started hiding his food in different places and he sniffs it all out no problem at all. In the morning all the fish are gone, even the ones I place on the stones inside his pool. This proves that he is indeed going into the tank. Whether he is going in for a dip or not is another story. Will keep an eye out and hopefully catch him having a swim.

Stayed out playing with Otto for my usual hour this evening and came back in feeling like an ice cube! Frrrreeeezing!!!

Octopus?

Innes got Otto some Octopi yesterday, so I tried him out on it today. Well, it looks like Otto doesn't like Octopus. He had a sniff at it  and turned his nose up. Instead of the Octopus, he had a juicy Flatfish.
 Never mind, i'll have the inky mollusc for my dinner instead.

Octopus...

Otto didn't know what to think of this!

 Flounder or a Sole?

Instead of the Octopus he had this Flatty.

WWF Otto wrestling gloves

Otto is getting bigger every day...so is his grip! I have been doing some bare handed wrestling with him...but no more. Ouch!!! Tonight I decided to do the heavy duty glove approach. My hands are now safe from those teeth of his and he seems to not mind my new mittens at all. Lots of  happy Otter vocalising and lots of wrestling fun tonight. He seems now to be getting playfully stuck in a lot more, and due to the gloves my hands are feeling a lot better for it.

As usual for this time of year, the wind and rain is relentless. I usually have to wear my waterproofs but tonight there has been no rain. Hallelujah!!!

Young Otters, like most young animals, have the need to bond with their Mother and Siblings. Sadly Otto has neither. A lot of bonding is done during play. I am now Otto's Mum, so I play with him as much as possible...A playful Otter is a happy Otter.

Innes got Otto some fresh Octopus today, so I will try him out with some of Coll's freshest calamari tomorrow... photos to follow.

No sign yet of using his new pool...may have to re-think things...Hmmmm.

Otter Watersports

Last night my friend Milly came round.  He had spotted an old plastic watertank, and thought it would make a good beginners swimming pool for Otto. We went to have a look at it and it was indeed ideal. It had been cut down to about 2 feet high...perfect! By the time we got it back it was dark, so it had to wait till the morning.

A few days earlier Myself, Milly and Peter moved a large shellfish transporter container round to the enclosure. The idea came from Innes, who suggested I take it home for Otto to learn to swim in. It's pretty big and I havent quite worked out yet how to set it up. An extra section, extension will probably have to be added to the existing enclosure. Finding this new water tank is brilliant because it means Otto can get into his watersports right away. Nice one Milly!

I gave it a good clean, fitted an open/close valve to it (for emptying the water) and carefully man handled it over the wire netting of the run. Once it was steady and level enough I filled it with about 30cm of water, bucketed from the adjacent freshwater burn. There was some heavy rain last night so the burn was in full flow.I piled some rocks up on the outside of it for Otto to get in, and done the same on the inside for him to get back out. I only filled it with 30cm of water so he can get used to it. Once he is confident, I will fill it up. Think I need to get myself a length of hose and a water pump...so much easier than going back and forth with buckets.

Just need to wait now and see if he uses it. I've not seen Otto in water before so hopefully I'll get some decent photographs when he decides to dive in.

This evening Otto has been as playful as ever. I gave him his supper, a Codling, which he completely devoured. After supper, he had a good old play fight with me but showed no real interest in his new swimming pool. I'll check on him again later...

all in good time.

Shellfish transporter container

Donated by Innes Henderson

The new learning pool...half a watertank!

Hope Otto likes it

Where Otto lives

Here is a link to where Otto lives. It's a great site so have a good look around.
http://www.visitcoll.co.uk/

Otto's behaviour so far

Otto spends most of the day in his holt and mostly comes out at night. This is when I interact with Him. Regardless of the weather I spend about an hour with him every night. He likes to wrestle and play with almost anything he can find. Plastic bottles seem to be the toy of choice at the moment. Everything is done on Otto terms. He keeps his holt clean and shits and pees outside...house trained or what! He uses the rocky side to the left of the holt for this and uses the grassier right hand side for eating. Small fish like the Pouting are completely eaten whereas the heads and spines of larger fish are left. Otto is not a pet and will not come out for anyone apart from me. I reckon this is a good thing for when he goes back to the wild...reckon I must be his surrogate mum! Like a puppy, he enjoys rolling around and fighting biting my hands....unlike a puppy, there is no way he will allow me to pick him up. As I said..everything is on Otto terms. He gets fed regularly on a diet of fish with the occasional tin of cat or dog food. I reckon he consumes 2lb of fish per day and is growing very fast indeed. He seems to be showing a great interest in water at the moment, so over the next week I will be setting up a large swimming area for him...more on that later. Tried him with a crab last week but he didn't seem to know what to do with it. Will try again this week.

The idea is to eventually let him out to investigate the nearby bay and the burn that leads to the Mill lochs. Hopefully he will by this time trust me enough to accompany him on his foraging expeditions. Because he is so young, it is imperative that he returns to the Holt. Young Otters stay with their mothers for well over a year before becoming independent.

Will write some more soon.

Cheers for now.

What age is Otto?

At the end of October when Otto made himself known to me, he had already been weaned. Weaning age for the European Otter (lutra lutra) is around 10 weeks. Peter and I reckon when we got Otto he was about 3 months old. That makes Him as from today roughly 4 months old. Here he is a couple of days ago munching into some cat food.

say cheese!

Meaowww!!!

Is Otto a boy or girl?

Hmmmm???....dont know yet. 

For now I will refer to Otto as a him.

Moving Day

Bananas? Otto in the old chest, just before we moved it.

nearly there, gotta make a better door.

sniff sniff

What you looking at?

Moving Otto into his new home would take two people. My friend David agreed to help. In the morning David arrived and we moved Otto. It was easier than I first thought. I simply waited for Otto to go into his wooden chest then proceded to tape up the entrance using the original piece that was cut out. When Otto was secure, we lifted an end each and carried the chest round to the enclosure. Once in the enclosure I untaped the blocked hole. Otto came straight out and had a sniff around. After a good sniff Otto went under the raised holt and stayed there for a while. It wasn't long before the little Otter found the entrance to the holt. Many thanks for your help David, much appreciated

Only the freshest fish

A day after Otto got here I managed to source a regular supply of fresh fish. 2 local fishermen have been kind enough to supply Otto with an endless supply of the smelly stuff. Otto gets the fish straight out the sea and I have a mountain of it in the freezer.See photos for a look at Otto's finest. Many thanks to Innes and Kenny for taking the time out to do this...Cheers!!!

November 2012

Three Bearded Rockling

Wrasse

Codling

Pouting

Dinner time

Heading for cover

munch munch!

crunch crunch

Building the Otto enclosure

For the next few days Peter and I built Otto a large run. I also spent some time building Otto a place to chill out and sleep in. I made his holt out of old timber that was in the shed and insulated it to keep Otto warm. I also weatherproofed it against the elements. I collected large stones from a fallen down drystone wall and put them in the enclosure. Some were used to try and stop Otto digging his way under and out of the enclosure. Others were positioned near and around the holt to give the whole thing a more natural feel. The holt was raised off the ground incase of flooding. An old palet was used for this.

After days of sawing, nailing, screwing,bashing and hammering, it was now time for Otto to leave the porch and move into its new home.

 November 2012

By night

By Day

First impressions

As it was getting late, we decided that the cub would spend one more night with Peter.

That night I spent some time getting ready for the cubs arrival. I looked out an old wooden chest from the shed. I cut an opening in the front of the hinged box and filled it with towels. This would be the cubs bed.

Early the next day Peter arrived and we moved the cub to it's new temporary accomodation...my porch! During the Summer months, the porch is a photo gallery. With the gallery being closed for the winter, it would now make a temporary Otter room.

We lifted the large lobster keep cage and carried it into the porch area. With everything in place, Peter opened the rope door and the otter was out. The cub had a good look around, a good sniff and then made it's way to the old chest.

By this point, Peter had already been hand feeding the cub with the finest of supermarket fillet salmon and trout. It wasn't long before the little otter was sheepishly investigating and eating Tesco's finest from my hand.

I wonder how young it is? Is it a Boy or a Girl? What should it be eating? How often should it be eating?Where will get the food from? How often does it shit? The questions went on.

What should we call it? At this point Peter said...."Otto"!!! "It's name is Otto the Otter"!!!

There was no way that Otto could stay in the Porch for too long. We started the plans to build a run in the garden. Some kind of large enclosure. Somewhere cool for an Otter. As well as building a run, we would have to construct an insulated weatherproof and watertight sleeping holt for Otto to chill in. What about a regular food supply? ...got to act fast on this one.

October 2012

Our first meeting

 My friend Peter opened the passenger door of his wagon. "A challenge, if your are willing to except it" he said. I peered in and found myself looking at a large lobster keep cage. I looked through the ropes of the cage to find there was something looking back at me and it wasn't a lobster. To my surprise it was a baby Otter.

Peter had been working on the neighbouring island of Tiree and had got wind of two orphaned Otter cubs.Their Mother was killed by a car, and the cubs had taken refuge in a roadside wall. They had been there for days. Peter quickly took the undernourished cubs under his wing and gave them some food and water. In the morning the weaker of the two cubs had unfortunately died. The remaining cub continued to gain it's strength and a few days later was fighting fit again.

Peter has four working dogs to look after, so an Otter was out of the question. He needed someone to take the cub off his hands. Due to previously rearing Greylag Geese back to the wild, I became his first choice for surrogate mother.

I live in a little cottage by the sea. There is a freshwater burn running to it which comes from a nearby freshwater loch. There is plenty of open space and virtually no neighbours. The passing trade is also minimal. What else do I need?

I accepted the challenge.

October 2012