Isle of Mull Otters, Scotland May 2024
In May 2024 I had a trip back to the Isle of Mull on the North West Coast of Scotland. Mull is known for great wildlife viewing and photography opportunities and especially the Otters that enjoy the surrounding Loch’s. All the images were taken with my Nikon Z9 and 600mm F4 TC VRS lens and hand held.
I had 2 days guiding booked with Pete Walkden Photography who is a very well known guide on the island. As always with these kind of trips the weather plays a huge part of how successful you will be and this was no exception.
The first day we had beautiful unbroken sunshine and the temperatures hit 24 centigrade. What a beautiful day it was on Mull; however this meant for a poor days photography. The Otters do not like the heat and heat haze caused by the warm rocks when laying down on the shore can be a huge problem meaning the camera is unable to focus on the subject or the backgrounds become very unpleasant.
The first day we only saw one mother and her cub for a short period before they disappeared and they didn’t really get close to us so there were no images.
The second day; the forecast was still warm but a lot more overcast. We were fortunate to find a mother and cub again quite early on and were able to position ourselves amongst the rocks along the shore and spend a good amount of time watching them hunt and sleep. The heat haze was still causing issues but I still managed to get some images.
As they worked their way further up the Loch we saw another otter join them; we presume one of her other cubs and then shortly after than another larger who we presumed to be dad also came along. For a few minutes we watched all 4 of them play together in the water which was a wonderful thing to experience.
Eventually they all dispersed and we were on the hunt again. It wasn’t long before we saw another come out from what we presume was a Holt and we carefully followed along the shoreline as she was rooting through the kelp and picking out meals. Again nestled in amongst the rocks making sure to be upwind of her she swam right past me – so close I had to switch the teleconverter off my lens in order to be able to focus.
Eventually she swam off unconcerned by our presence. We later picked up this same otter again we think who eventually caught a large dog fish which she sat eating on the shore. One of the things Mull is also known for is photographers getting too close and disturbing the otters either out of pure ignorance not knowing the correct fieldcraft or being more focused on getting the image than the welfare of their subjects. This is where having a guide like Pete is great because he can help you get in good positions where he thinks the otter will go without risking disturbance. With some patience and a helping of luck you can have some wonderful encounters without impacting on them. Sadly on this occasion we did witness one person doing exactly as described and spooked this otter off her meal by trying to get too close to her. As she went back to sea with the remains of her catch we went up to the top of the beach wondering if she might be about to come in again as we were near to where we originally saw her come out. This was the final gift for us as she did exactly that; came up the beach and then to my disbelief she started to run right towards us through the shrubbery along the top of the shoreline. I got a sequence of images of her doing this which made for a nice change from the usual shots you will see.
