Otter - Click here for the story

Well, the Mercury is carrying the story today of an Otter photographed within "swimming distance" of the city centre. Usual Mercury tosh about "secret riverside location" and "these cameras are often used in more exotic parts of the world to photograph rare, shy and nocturnal creatures" but a welcome story vevertheless. As most will know the water has to be clean as a clean thing to support this species so here's hoping. However at the end of the article it does mention that during last month's riverside survey amongst the more unusual species "spotted" were Water Vole and Mink. The continued presence of Mink could put pay to any recovery of the Water Vole population but Otters are reported to attack and even kill Mink and it seems that the reason mink spread so quickly initially throughout Britain was because they had no competition whilst Otter numbers were recovering. Fight, fight, fight, fight...............