Last week, on a rare warm spring day, I joined Kate from North East Wales Wildlife on her regular otter survey route, past banks of pale yellow primroses and delicate violets. The smell of wild garlic caused us to wrinkle our noses and talk about making wild garlic pesto sauce as the River Alyn murmured gently in the background.
Kate stopped and peered through her binoculars, ‘There’s some spraint,’ she pointed at an oily splodge on a prominent rock on the edge of the river. We crouched over it and saw that it was full of white specks, ‘Frog leg bones,’ said Kate. Of course we had to sniff the splodge, there’s a lot of speculation about the smell of otter poo. Some say it’s like jasmine tea, others that it’s fishy or even like freshly mown hay, anyway, we agreed it’s not as unpleasant as it looks. And more importantly, it meant there were otters here. We spotted more and more spraint further along the river and then, even more exciting, paw prints in the silty mud
It was an idyllic spot on such a day, open meadow, slow meandering river, wild flowers, buzzards mewing, a woodpecker beating a frantic rhythm on a nearby dead tree. Suddenly, we flinched at a sharp ‘peep’ and saw a blue blur as a kingfisher zipped past us. It was tempting to take our shoes and socks off and paddle, but we were meant to be looking for otters.
In fact, the cameras set up by NEW Wildlife have already picked up an otter and two cubs, we wanted to check if they were still around so were keen on finding fresh spraint. The paw prints were certainly fresh and we imagined the otters scampering and playing over the many new branches fallen after the heavy April snows. We were willing an otter to appear and kept our eyes peeled amongst the dark places under the overhanging bank and in the tangle of willow roots but we knew it was very unlikely.
We agreed that just knowing they were around was enough.
