Today was brighter but cold. We saw the otter family taking lunch about an hour after low tide. The cubs are now very active, though one, which I think is a female is definitely less keen than the other, which has already learnt to fish.
Staying in much the same place the mother brought small fish ashore for the lazy cub, tossing one nonchalantly in front of it, but then caught a scorpion fish which she set about herself. The idle cub then had a go until just about every part of the fish had gone.
The mother's eye problem looks to have healed a little but it is still very noticeable; now that the cubs are not much smaller than the mother it does help identification, There is a pink patch to the left side of the left eye, which is probably an injury, maybe inflicted by a male.
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| Injured eye very noticeable |
In all we watched for about an hour, and in a way we were rather glad when the otters went east, so that we could unfreeze fingers and toes.
Love your gorgeous images of the otters. So glad to see her eye is healing and that she is still able to catch fish.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for those comments. The eye problem does not seem to affect it in any way, and I have not tried to get close to see whether it is the eye or just the skin around the eye, as otters with cubs tend to be very nervous. My hunch is that she was injured by a male - domestic violence and all that.
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