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Otters are mythical creatures
to some and many people, including
so called 'experts', have never seen an Otter. However,
they have often seen their signs, i.e. their spraint
or droppings. It may be that in England and the
rest of Europe, you have to be content with seeing their signs and that is
because they are usually nocturnal in those places. Here
on Mull, the Otter hunts during the day and he is more
 governed by the state of the tide, than whether it is morning
or night. Otters are only occasionally seen in
fresh water here, and it is just offshore near seaweed
covered rocks where you will most likely see one.
Purchase a Tide Table and study the tides, because The
Otter is much more likely to be seen on an incoming tide, than at any other
time. As it comes toward high tide, the
Otter usually heads for its holt, which is its home
and rest area. It is also where they rear their
young.
It is very easy to miss an Otter, despite the fact that they
are quite large, the Dog Otter being around four feet
from nose to tail. Most people miss an Otter
because they are simply not looking!! I saw my
last Otter this afternoon and he was about a quarter of a mile away and
silhouetted on top of a small rocky Islet.  They
can be very close indeed when they bring a fish ashore and proceed to eat it
- perhaps as close as twenty feet
away - and as they are so used to visitors simply
cruising on by them, they accept cars passing their territories quite readily.
However they can sometimes be very obvious,
particularly on a quiet and calm day, as they feed on Butterfish,
perhaps thirty feet offshore. If
you catch sight of one in this situation, make sure
you pretend that you haven't, because if you stop
very close to an Otter, he will dive and disappear!!
Always continue past, and park
perhaps a hundred metres away from the Otter. If
you then get out quietly and walk back toward it, using what vegetation
there is as concealment, you can enjoy long term
sightings of a really interesting and rare creature.
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