{"id":126,"date":"2019-02-14T08:38:27","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T08:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artofthewild.co.uk\/blog\/?p=126"},"modified":"2019-02-14T08:38:27","modified_gmt":"2019-02-14T08:38:27","slug":"when-will-i-learn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/?p=126","title":{"rendered":"When will I learn?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning I got up at 05:45 am to look for the mother otter and her kitts. I’d seen them recently, and as the forecast looked promising I was hopeful I might get some shots in better light.<\/p>\n

Now this is the same place where, 4 years ago, I left my camera in a hide while I nipped to the loo. And when I got halfway there I stumbled across a mother otter and her kitts on the path.<\/p>\n

This time i found the otter and kitts fishing right beside it, in and around the branches of a fallen tree. The branches stopped me taking photos so I waited patiently for them to emerge onto open water where I could take a picture. The light was perfect. Then everything went silent and still. Had they gone from the tree out into the lake? Had I missed them? I stepped three paces to my right to get a clear view of the lake. And as I did so, the mother otter and her kitts swam right past me, no more than twelve feet away. If I moved they would dive and I would not see them again. So i had to stand there, immobile, watching as the shot of my dreams slowly swam away, the female watching me closely and sniffing repeatedly. Otters have a very good sense of smell and I got the impression I was being filed away somewhere in her list of things to watch out for.<\/p>\n

I went home, almost in tears, but returned to the reserve that afternoon. For hour after hour I saw nothing. But just as I was about to go home, I saw the mother otter and kitts appear as if by magic. The light was fading but it was a joy to watch them playing. At one point one of the kitts climbed onto its mothers back just as she was diving, and I finally got a photo. But even if I hadn’t got anything, an early start and a long day would have been a small price to pay.<\/p>\n

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This morning I got up at 05:45 am to look for the mother otter and her kitts. I’d seen them recently, and as the forecast looked promising I was hopeful I might get some shots in better light. Now this is the same place where, 4 years ago, I left my camera in a hide […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}