The Life Story of an Otter

by J. C. Tregarthen

That night the otter, whilst calling from the Seal Rock, heard a rival call from far away across the water in the direction of the Shark’s Fin. Later the cry came from the cliffs below Cold Comfort Farm, and close on cockcrow from the clitter where he himself had called an hour before. Every minute he expected the stranger to round the bluff and cross the bar, and presently he saw him come over the pebble ridge and slip into the mere. It was the otter of the night before, who passed down the creek, landed opposite the island, and lay up under the furze.

At nightfall both otters, apparently on good terms, were fishing near the inflow, when the shrill summons of a female reached their ears and set them aflame with passion. They swam as fast as their legs could propel them to the spot whence the call proceeded, and as soon as the otter had landed and licked the face of the skittish little creature awaiting the rivals, he turned to face his enemy. Like two furies they fought in the shallows churned with their incessant movements. As they struggled they got into deeper water, where, locked together, they sank beneath the surface, and so long did they remain immersed that it seemed as though both must be drowned. But the eddies by some decaying lilies told that the fight was still going on, and at last the beasts came up, it might be a yard apart. Quick as lightning they closed again and, rolling over and over, passed from sight a second time in the convulsed water. Then they half rose, and lashing the water with their powerful tails, kept snapping at each other with a viciousness that nothing could exceed, their savage snarls mingling with the clash of their teeth when they failed to get home. For over an hour the conflict raged, now above, now below the surface, till in the end, the old otter, unable to continue the battle, dived to escape further mauling from his victorious foe. But the wild creature’s jealousy is never appeased unless its rival is utterly worsted; and a relentless pursuit followed. The bitch otter, now all ears as she had been all eyes, heard the landing, first of the fugitive, then of his enraged pursuer, and soon the crashing of the stems that told of further conflict. At length, in the silence that succeeded the noise of strife, she saw the victor emerge from the mist as he swam towards the spot where she awaited him. Thus, by the discomfiture of the tyrant who had been the terror of every young dog-otter on his rounds, the otter won the little mate who was to share his lot.

Happier than they were, two otters could not be. Their close companionship proved it. Where one was, there was the other. They fished in company, they hovered together, and when they journeyed to fresh fishing-grounds they travelled side by side. A fortnight after they had paired they made their way up the valley of the stream that supplies the mere, and laid up in holts known to the female otter. Three nights’ fishing and roaming brought them to the great quagmire where the stream rises, which in summer is but a thread of water winding through the waste of cotton grasses that nod over it. All day they lay asleep on dry couches in the heart of the mire, and at dusk the female led over the high ridge to the watershed that slopes to the northern cliffs where she had been reared. The stream they followed empties itself near a hamlet, and there in the cove under the very windows they fished until daybreak drove them to the cave where they intended to hover. Shaking their coats, they entered—to find an otter already in possession. The instant he raised his mask they saw it was he of the scarred face, but before they advanced a yard he had risen to his feet and was in full flight towards another outlet. The influence of the fight was still on him, and he preferred retreat, even by daylight, to risk of another mauling. They never saw him again.

The otters stayed in the neighbourhood of the hamlet over a week, and during their sojourn nothing disturbed them, nothing even made them prick their ears, except the creaking of the oars as the fishermen rowed past their quarters. On leaving they moved westwards, and beyond two wild headlands came at dawn to the beetling cliffs where the seals have their dwelling in vast caverns hollowed by the Atlantic. Swimming through the turmoil of water at the narrow mouth of the nearest cave, they landed half-way in, climbed to a ledge, from that to another higher still, and there lay down on the bare rock and licked themselves, pausing now and again to look at the seals reclining on the beach of white sand that loomed in the darkness shrouding the inmost part of the cave. When they had completed their toilet they curled up on the smooth slab and, being weary after their long swim, fell asleep, despite the incessant cries of the seals and the ceaseless roar of the waves. They did not awake till the last rays of the sun illumined the surf at the cave’s mouth; but when the shags came flying in to roost, they bestirred themselves, and presently sallied out to fish on the edge of the tide-race and gambol in the swirls of the boiling eddies.

They used the cave for nearly a week, until tempted by the very fine weather to lie out. Then for three days they hovered in the basin at the summit of the Pillar Rock, about a furlong from the cliffs, their presence known only to the gulls and gannets that sailed overhead. On resuming their round, they came, after four hours’ journeying, to the beach of the Gulf Stream fronting the west, and there they fished and frolicked amongst the waves that broke on the shelly strand, and sought couches amongst the sea-rushes that tuft the dunes. They lingered there week after week till the weather changed, but on the night of a lurid sunset, rounded the grim promontory which marks the end of all the land, and set their faces towards the marsh. On the way thither the female otter kept biting off the rushes and carrying them in her mouth, and when she reached the mere she at once chose a place in the heart of the reed-bed to make a nest. From it soon proceeded the faint squeals of four baby otters, the rearing of which, as it proved, was to try the resources of herself and her mate to the utmost.

CHAPTER IX

FROST AND FAMINE

After the night on which the whelps were born the otter repaired to his old hover on the point, whence he could slip into the water by day and, without exposing himself, catch what fish his mate needed to make good the drain on her strength. In going to and from the spot near the nest where he left his takings for her he soon beat a path amongst the reeds, by which the little mother reached the mere at nightfall and joined her mate in raiding the fish that seemed more abundant than ever. Eels indeed were scarce since the autumn migration, but of pike, tench and bream there was great store. On these the otters fed for the most part; but occasionally they fished in the sea, and took toll of the pollack, plaice, conger and shell-fish found in the inshore waters. They could not have wished for greater variety of prey, and the supply seemed as assured as it was inexhaustible.

But there was soon to steal upon the unsuspecting creatures a frost which exceeded in severity any visitation of cold that even the old marshman had witnessed. It set in whilst the cubs were yet blind, and on the second night the water near the nest was frozen thick enough to bear the otter’s weight, as were also the shallows near the bar, for he landed on the ice there to eat his supper. Before many days passed, strings of wild-fowl arrived, causing great rejoicing to the otters, who, far from regarding them as harbingers of famine, foresaw an agreeable change in their usual fish diet. Nor had they occasion to look with apprehension on the gradual encroachment of the ice, inasmuch as the breathing-holes which they made and kept open enabled them to range as freely as before the frost. Of course, they had to bring their prey to the open water; but for the trouble this gave them they found some compensation in the convenient landing-place afforded by the edge of the ice, which was soon dotted with the remains of their repasts. Moreover, the great sheet of ice served them as a playground when they were weary of gambolling in the mere, and on it they cut mad capers which held the mallard, widgeon, and teal at gaze.

Protected by their thick coats the creatures enjoyed the biting cold, and the cubs, cuddled together in the cosy nest, suffered no ill effects from its rigour. The pike, like the otters, revelled in the frost; but the tench, and the eels that had not gone to sea, felt its pinch, and the bream forsook their usual feeding-grounds. Where these gregarious fish had betaken themselves the otters never knew, but the eels and tench buried themselves in the mud and gave much trouble in the capture. Still, disagreeable though the process was, both these fish were to be had by patient searching in the ooze—at least, it was so at first; then the ground ice, which had gripped the stems of the weeds, spread and spread as the cold increased, until it formed an impenetrable layer over most of the bed of the mere. This followed on the withdrawal of the sea-fish to the warmer depths of the offing, inaccessible to the otters, which were thus caused no little uneasiness.