A celebration of the return of the otter to the UK's rivers and
freshwater wetlands after a drastic decline in the twentieth century.
Ripples of excitement are spreading through Europe's rivers. A
generation ago, otter watching was a wildlife highlight restricted to
remote coastal areas--otter populations had been decimated over the
previous century by pesticide poisoning and habitat disturbance. But
recent decades have seen the positive effects of determined conservation
efforts to clean up our waterways, and now otters are returning and
spreading throughout their former habitats.
One of the UK's leading natural history photographers, Laurie Campbell,
was delighted to discover otters on the Tweed, a river he has known all
his life and the discovery launched him on a quest to create a
photographic account of the lives of freshwater otters.
Two decades later, otter numbers have steadily increased, and new
generations of otters in busier sites have become more confident around
people, sometimes appearing in broad daylight. Laurie is dedicated to
photographing wild creatures in their habitats and is acclaimed for his
use of natural light and natural situations. Advances in technology have
created cameras able to function in low levels of light, greatly
enhancing the scope for photography at dawn and dusk, and his exquisite
photographs reveal behavior and moments rarely captured by other nature
photographers.
In this beautiful photographic book, extended captions by Anna Levin
recount Laurie's observations as he photographs otters through the
changing seasons. Together they weave a wealth of information about
otter biology, ecology and behavior into the story the pictures tell,
set in the context of the river system itself and the other wildlife
that shares the otters' habitat.
