 |
| Mum and cub - the mother will shortly leave her cub to enjoy the catch (see images below). |
My friends have two nicknames for me (two that I know about,
at least). The first is ‘Beethoven’,
which is not due to the way in which I dribble when someone opens a tin of
Pedigree Chum, but due to my love of the composer’s music (I wrote my PhD dissertation
on Beethoven and have devoted much of my life to performing and giving lectures on
his music).
The other nickname is ‘otter’. I’ve probably devoted more hours to
photographing otters (and most of that has been spent waiting patiently to
catch a glimpse of one) than to any other single creature. My friends even say I dance like an otter, although
having never seen one dance, I couldn’t possible comment, and my wife says she
first felt attracted to me when I first started giving her a loch-side lecture
on otter behaviour (she’s a keeper, that one).
It takes a long time
to learn the basics of otter photography.
For me, it took two failed trips to the Isle of Mull, where I sat by the
shoreline every day for up to 14 hours a day, for weeks at a time, and spent my
bedtime reading sessions steeped in books and research papers about otters, trying
to work out how on earth I could share their coastline and get within just a
few feet of them, close enough to take photographs, without disturbing
them. Otters are very sensitive
creatures, and you have to be completely in tune with every movement in their
environment to close enough. However, the
biggest secret is that you have to make sure that you’re in the right position
for them to come close to you – you can’t approach an otter.
Learning about their behaviour is a never-ending and fascinating
learning curve, but I have one simple technique which serves as the basis to
this, as it does to all my photography.
When I’m ready to go, I calm myself by taking deep breaths of cold
Scottish air through my nose – coincidentally this is the same principle that
serves as the basis for Buddhist meditation, and I find it really sharpens my
senses, making me very sensitive all the sights, sounds and smells around me,
so that I can move with nature, not against it.
This is also the core principle of Daoist philosophy, feeling nature
around you and moving with it, not stirring it in anyway. I know when I’m in the right frame of mind - I
can feel the roughness of the stones as they turn
and bulge into the soles of my boots as I walk.
The line between moving with nature and taking a chance against her is
clearer than ever, and it’s important that I can stay securely on the right
side of that line. Working this way is
much better than going for the fast buck of chasing the shot; instead, it can
be possible to follow an otter for many hours at a time (my longest otter stalk
to date is about 6 hours, which ended with the otter exiting the loch via a
freshwater stream, and scurrying away to its holt – being sure that you’ve
followed an otter to its final point of rest for the day is the greatest
compliment to your field craft).
On my recent trip back to Mull, I managed to fit in just one
afternoon of otter photography, which is far from ideal since you can never be
certain of seeing an otter in that time (particular since I was out of touch
with the news of the local otter populations and families). Nevertheless, experience did mean I was able
to take some pictures and make sure I had something slightly different to those
pictures I’ve taken previously. I used a
site which I’ve not visited for years, out of the way from the tourist
traps. Privacy from other tourists is
important – even the wildlife tour buses stop when they see a photographer with
a long lens, and they’re particularly good at scaring away the subject that has
taken you hours to track down and get close to.
The downside of this site is that the coastline here is rugged and
difficult to negotiate on foot, and keeping up with an otter as it goes about
its daily business is extremely difficult.
So off I set.
After a few hours of walking, I find a mother otter and her
cub fishing out in the water, and I wait to see if they’ll come into the
shore. The cub is quite mature and can
fish quite efficiently for itself, and when in the water the two are quite
difficult to tell apart. It’s clear,
however, that it still needs a little help with the larger meals, and whenever
the mum catches a large fish or a crab, she sticks it on top of an exposed rock
and then swims back out into the loch, leaving her cub there to tuck in and enjoy
it.
 |
| The mother swims out, leaving her cub to enjoy her catch. |
After an hour or so on the move, I’ve managed to move up the
coast ahead of the otters, hiding myself behind a rock just above the
shore. The otters are still working
their way round the coast towards me slowly, but there’s no way I’ll get closer
to the water than this without being spotted.
Usually I would hope to get my camera down on the ground, level of with
sight-line of the otters, although on this exposed, rough coast, I’m having to
keep a slightly higher position, with my camera supported on top of the
enormous boulder that I’m using for cover.
Eventually the mother brings in a crab and leaves on a pile
of seaweed for her cub – I’ve judged my position (and theirs) just right and
they’re now just below me.
Brilliant. The wind is blowing in
my face, which will help take my scent away from the otters, and will slightly
dampen the sound of my camera. Even
still, I have to be selective in the number of pictures I take since I can hear
every single wet munch of the chewing otter just a few metres in front of me –
I’m close, very close, and I’m not going to take any chances of disturbing
them. This is such a thrill – we’re
breathing the same air; our senses are sharpened to the same splashes of water
and gusts of breeze around us both. I
can hear my own heart beating; I can feel the adrenaline coursing through my
blood, and my finger is shaking on the shutter button. |
| Enjoying another mum-caught crab |
The sun comes out, and the water turns into a marvellous
marble of blues as it reflects the clear sky.
I can take advantage of my high position to make this wonderfully textured
surface part of the image. I take a deep breath of that cool, salty
Scottish air, in through my nose to help me stay sharp and focused. The otter finishes off the crab, looks around
and plunges into the water again to join its mother. They work their way up the coast a little
further, but I need to stay in position for a few minutes if I’m going to leave
the scene undetected. I wait and leave
them to it for the rest of the day.
This is what it's all about!
 |
| The high position helped me to photograph the marbled blue water when the sun came out. The sun also gave the otter cub a nice catch-light in the eye, which enlivens the picture. |
 |
| The cub returns to the water |
No comments:
Post a Comment