We have seen otters in the wild on many occasions through the years, in all seasons, and I actually have photographs I've taken of these fascinating critters-- somewhere!I was alone in Killarney Park for one encounter, perhaps 25 years ago. It was the end of April but there was still ice on the ponds. I heard what seemed to be ungodly screeching, which turned out to be a family of otters goofing around on the ice. They performed a playful sleight of hand, popping into holes, then out, running and sliding. I knelt to watch them in a light snowfall and they came astonishingly close with no apparent caution.
I saw this ten pound Scottish note and decided immediately that we ought to vote Queen Elizabeth off the island, or at least our twenty, to make room for the otter.
There aren't any otters in the bible (ya, I know there otter be) but they show up prominently in the stories of some of the Celtic hermit saints. Apparently St. Cuthbert is the patron saint of otters, which probably doesn't impress them in the slightest. St. Keven is reputed to have dropped his prayer book into a lake and a companionable otter retrieved it for him. Clever and practical friend.
A very popular book in Great Britain at the moment is the illustrated Lost Words by Robert McFarlane and Jackie Morris. It contains "spells" for the creatures and plants whose names were deemed redundant in the Oxford Junior Dictionary, including "otter. McFarlane's otter spell includes:
This shape-shifter's a sheer breath-taker
a sure heart-stopper -- but you'll only ever spot
a shadow flutter, a bubble skein,
and never (almost never) actual otter.
I'm grateful to God the Creator that I've seen these elusive, playful creatures as often as I have. While living in Halifax we commissioned an otter stained-glass, aware that of the sacred sense of a creature which lives between two worlds with such joie de vivre.
Any otter stories?
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