An Otterly Amazing Experience

Since getting properly into my wildlife photography, one animal has eluded me, the Otter. I got tantalising close on my summer sailing trip with Tim back in June, having our first proper sighting, and getting some record shots. During that trip we saw Otters on 4/5 different occasions, but each time I was in the wrong position, and just too far away.

Luckily for me, at the beginning of 2024, I booked a photography holiday to the Isle of Mull, with Carl Thomas, specifically, to see and photograph Otters.

Having arrived on the island and settled into our accommodation for the week, day 1 was spent visiting the known otter hotspots. We split into 2 cars and set off from our accommodation; I was with Ali and Gordon in their car. As we made our way around the island, we stopped and searched with the binoculars in the hopes of catching our first glimpse of an otter. I managed to spot the first one, that we watched for a while, but it was very far out and showed no sign of heading in, moving further out towards a rock in the loch.

We continued on our way and hit our first Isle of Mull road block, in the form of a sizeable herd of cows, being moved down the loch (I think in total the guys said they walked them something like 11 miles!).

We continued on and parked up, and got incredibly lucky as there was our first otter, within photo distance. I made sure to stay low, and move when the otter was underwater, stopping in between dives. I was able to capture my first images, and a little bit of video, of the otter out in the water.

I buddied up with Ali, and we moved up to get ahead of the otter, laying down in the seaweed behind a massive rock, and waited for the otter to, hopefully, come past. Unfortunately for us, the wind changed direction and was now coming from behind us, pushing our smell towards the otter, who chose to disappear back out into the loch.,

This seemed like a great start to our trip, and while the images I had taken, were not (in my option) keeper shots, they were the best I’d ever taken of an otter so that was something. Back at the cars, the traffic jam from earlier had caught up with us, so I took a moment to get an in image, before they passed us.

When it came to day 2, the weather had taken a turn and was miserable, with lots of wind and rain. We tried our best to get out, and see what, if any, we could see over in the public hide at Fishnish, as this is a popular location for the otters, as well as white tailed eagles. Unfortunately, there was not much to see at all, due to the inclement weather. Though we did get a few visits from this rather lovely, juvenile robin.

The rain and winds had mostly passed (for now) as we went into day 3, and we headed out once more in search of otters. We tried a few spots throughout the morning, but none of these panned out. So we headed back to where we had seen the otter on day 1, as this seemed to be a reasonable active area for them.

Though we hadn’t spotted anything with the binoculars. Ali and I decided that we’d do a sit and wait, and hope that an otter would come out and go right past us. So, we chose a nice rock to lean our backs on and waited. Luckily for us, the rains from the previous day had passed, so we got to wait it out in the sunshine. However, the otters seemed to have misplaced their invitation to the photo shoot, as, after 2 hours, we had seen absolutely nothing, and with the tide almost in, we decided to call it a day and head back to our lodgings.

While we didn’t get out otter encounter, on our way back to base, we met a pair red deer right on the roadside. They seemed very chilled, so after getting some record shots from the car, we ventured out to see if we could get any better compositions. It was amazing to be so close to these wild deer, who were really not phased by our presence, we took some images on the road, before moving slow and low onto the verge that the deer were on. The young stag, while a spiker, held himself beautifully, I am hoping that he makes in through the season and starts to develop some prongs on next year’s antler set.

After spending some time with these two, we popped back in the car, before getting dropped off so we could walk the rest of the way back to the house, (all we’d really done was sit down all day), and also so we could try and photograph the larger group of red deer, with its more mature stags that seemed to be in one area along the drive most evenings. These were much further out, but we got some record shots, and got to see the storm front building up overhead, before heading home before the rain came.

The main event on day 4, was photographing the white tailed eagles while out with Mull Charters (you can read more about that day here), that finished by midday, and we tried our best to scout out some more otter locations, but to no avail, making it the third day in a row of no otter sightings for us.

I must admit that by this point, I was starting to feel like maybe we wouldn’t see any, especially given the forecast for our last couple of days on the island.

We set out on day 5 in some brilliant sunshine, heading once more to where we photographed our only otter of the trip so far. The weather darkened but, for now, while it was grey and overcast, the rain hadn’t started. We spotted an otter out in the loch so jumped out the car early so we could get ahead of it, and into position. While this otter came in closer than any other I have photographed this year, it stayed out hunting and eating its catch on the water. After it passed us by, we were able to make our way back up to the road and attempt to reposition ourselves for another encounter.

This time the otter hauled out onto some rocks nearby, to leave some spraint (otter poop) marking its territory, before passing right by us as it continued on down the beach. It popped out again a bit further down, and made its way up some more rocks, leaving another bit of spraint and then continuing on its way.

Once it was the other side of the rocks, we headed back to the road, at this point there were actually two otters! Though we missed the interaction with the both of them, before they went their separate ways. We decided to go along with our otter, as it rolled around in the seaweed, before heading out to the water to hunt once more.

We ended up walking as far as we could on this part of the loch, as the otter drifted further and further out. The rain then came in, and so we decided to head back towards the cars in the hopes that the other otter was still around. We kept an eye on the one we’d been tracking, just in case it turned back. We were in luck! As it had caught itself a big fish, that it was brining to shore to eat.

We immediately sat down where we were and started to take our photos. The rain was pouring down now, but that didn’t matter to us, as we were captivated by this otter eating it catch.

There was quite the distance between us and the otter, so I utilised the aps-c mode of my camera (that I have mapped to my C3 button), effectively cropping in camera. It was brilliant, finally getting this sort of encounter with an otter, especially after 3 days of no sightings.

As the otter finished eating and moved towards us and into the water, with smiles all around, we continued towards the cars, however, the otter had a surprised in-store for us. Immediately catching another fish, this time a stonking great big goby fish, and brought it to shore, right in front of us.

We made like rocks and sat down where we were, getting wet bums on the seaweed. It was an amazing experience to be able to witness the otter feeding (this time much closer to us), and what made it even more special, was that it was just Ali and myself on the beach with this otter. The other visitors and photographers had made their way up to the car park, while we had walked along the beachfront.

While we were with this otter, I made sure to sit and take in the experience and not just sit and view it all through my view finder. How it could still be hungry after that meal I don’t know, but after 15 minutes of eating, the otter slipped back into the water and continued to hunt. Well and truly wet and stoked on our encounter, Ali and I left the otter be, and headed back to the car to dry out.

With day 5 paying out on the otter front, I went into day 6 with an open view of, if we see anything, it would be the cherry on top of an already delicious cake

We jumped in the cars and headed off to where we’d been the day before. En route, we bumped into another photographer, who we’d met a few times this week in our search for otters. He had got himself into an absolutely brilliant spot behind a rock with an otter probably less than 10 meters away, where it had hauled out on a rock. We could see the otter from the car and did our best to get some images of it, as we didn’t want to get out and disturb it or the guy who was already in position. It was a fidgety thing and mostly spent its time grooming. There was also a band of light coloured rocks, between us and the otter below, which were in stark contrast to the very dark rock that the otter was on, and it felt like they were doing their best to reflect as much light as possible.

We moved on, jumping out before the car park so we could scan the shore in the hopes of seeing any otters. This was where the weather took a bit of a down turn, and the first of many, many squally showers passed though. It was bonkers how much the winds picked up and how much rain fell when one of these passed through. The wind was biting, and we were lucky enough that we could shelter behind the remains of an old pier to stop us from getting completely drenched. In between these downpours, the weather was lovely and sunny, and I can safely say that I saw the most amount of rainbows I’d ever seen in one day.

We spotted an otter out in the loch and got ourselves into positing, hoping it would be the right one. With the rain battering down on us, the otter turned into shore and I got one of my favourite images, with the otter in the water with the rain pouring down around it.

It hauled out behind us, and left some spraint on a rock, before getting back into the water. As it had passed, we made our way up to the road, where, if you can believe it, the rain got even heavier! We tried to shelter under a tree but, with the otter moving on and the rain sticking around, we just accepted we’d get soaked and tried to get into position for another encounter.

Our luck was with us again, as the otter caught a sizeable fish and brought it to shore to devour. Crouching behind a large rock, I was able to get by BEST EVER otter images, and capture that one that had in my mind the whole time, an otter in the seaweed, looking straight at the camera.

This was a truly magical experience, and I can see why the Isle of Mull is somewhere where people keep returning to. I had captured the image I’d dreamed of (as well as a cold) and had the most amazing adventure in the process.

These images will definitely be featuring in my 2025 photobook of the year, and I have also chosen one of my otter images to feature in my 2026 British Wildlife + 1 Cow Calendar (you can order yours here 😉).

Helpful Links:
My 2026 Calendar!
Ali’s Facebook Page
Carl Thomas Facebook Page (host and organiser of the trip)