By Amy Jerome

I’ve been searching for five years and today is no exception. I’m walking through a nature reserve in Buckinghamshire following the advice of other otter spotters, that the same family have been seen in the same location, at the same time for the past week. Yet I’m convinced that today is not the day – after all, yesterday wasn’t the day – or the day before.

As I take each eager but pessimistic step towards the hide, I run through every superstition in which my ritual for spotting is broken, and why I’ll not see an otter today. It’s raining; it’s midday; it’s me! I seem to be cursed with some kind of otter repellent!

I approach the hide, pull up a seat and open the shutters in pin-drop silence. Binoculars in hand, I scan the horizon. After three minutes or so I put down my ‘bins’ to watch some great crested grebes courting in the near foreground. Before long I’m distracted by an ever-impressive heron soaring in to land on the bund (a sight that I will never grow tired of). There is a disturbance in the water to the left…

As a young student I decided that my life should be best spent near the water. I was obsessed with the biggest and most impressive of species and what is bigger than a whale? After a two-year course in animal management, my next step took me to study marine biology at the University of Stirling. Here our learning was largely focussed on aquaculture due to the nature of the university’s funding and research opportunities. But I had just spent half the year studying and interning in Monterey Bay, California and returning to Scotland to finish my degree in salmon was hardly the most exciting concept! After a field course in the Isle of Great Cumbrae where we learned how to identify prey remains in otter spraint (faeces), which I enjoyed immensely, I knew what I wanted to study for my dissertation topic – and here’s where the obsession began!

Many tiring hours were spent that year traipsing through the Scottish countryside alone, following the rivers Teith and Forth in every form of weather. My main goal was to find evidence of otter activity and especially prey remains and spraint. Sometimes I would stumble across a “couch” – an area of flattened grass where an otter may have taken a break or scent marked. I also managed to find one otter holt at the base of a tree on the other side of the water to a chimpanzee island, of all places! At the time I was working part time at a safari park in Stirling, and this particular young male otter had taken a shine to the chimps, often swimming over to see if he could find any scraps or bird eggs to steal. Much to my dismay, he often visited the keepers at the indoor enclosure and would swim alongside boats of tourists who were usually more interested in him than their own exotic African cousins on the land. I never saw him.

I collected (and smelled) many spraint samples, mapped the movements of a number of otters, found pug marks (paw prints), fresh kills, and even managed to catch a few camera trap images, but I would not cross paths with an in-the-flesh otter despite my dedication to the cause.

Many years have passed since then. I’ve dragged friends, family and my fiancé along river banks looking for signs of otters and demanding them to sit in silence until the sun sets. I’ve travelled to UK otter “hot spots” and spent long hours sitting on cold rocks and damp grass in everlasting hope. I have even continued my research on a voluntary basis for a charity in the South East of England. It was beginning to feel like I would never see a wild otter, despite my ever-growing CV and clear desperation.

This obsession with otters goes way beyond an affinity for the species itself. In fact, I’m not even that big a fan of otters in general. My favourites are the giant Amazon river otter, but the Europeans only excite me because they have evaded me for so many years.

By March 2020, adorned in otter memorabilia (key chains, pin badges and socks among others) I purchased a sculpture of two otters as a good luck charm – lovingly named Rosie & Jim. This would be my year! Now I was working for a land management charity in Buckinghamshire, and visitors to one of our nature reserves had been noting frequent sightings of an otter family of 3. Far hide, 12:30 – 14:00. I had to keep trying.

… I held my breath in total disbelief as a female otter carrying a small fish swam from the left of the hide, right under my nose, water lapping against the bank, across the lake and out of sight. I repeatedly muttered, “oh my God, oh my God” and felt a wave of gratitude for this beautiful creature who blessed me with this natural window into her life. I had no camera and so no evidence of the event, but I did record my reaction.

Now, you should know that I’m not really one for crying. In the past I have cried over experiences with a barn owl, humpback whales, orca and blue whales. I thought that I was hysterical enough then, but this took the cake! I sat and blubbed to myself for a good 15 minutes before I could compose and head back to work. Still to this day I well up when telling the story. I have never felt more blessed or lucky to have encountered a wild animal – the fruits of a labour of love.

The moral of the story? … Never give up on nature.

My chosen charity: European otters, whilst found in every county in the UK, are a “near threatened” species due to generations of persecution, habitat destruction and pollution. The International Otter Survival Fund is one of the world’s leading otter charities – it is the only charity working solely to protect UK otters.

Their work spreads far and wide to every corner of the globe where otters are present. Working not only with the research and protection teams in the field, but to the communities who live alongside otters and the pet trade which continues to threaten populations today.

I have had the pleasure of fundraising for this charity in the past and would love to see their vital work continue long into the future.