My friend Lisa has posted this excellent wildlife watching report to Extremadura. I love reports like this that don’t just focus on the birds. Lots of interesting stuff on insects, amphibians and as you can see, she chanced upon these otters at a “a small, reed-fringed reservoir” somewhere near Torrejon el Rubio. “Gambolling along the spit they chased away a competing Little egret before returning to the water and swimming towards the main body of the reservoir, followed by a very excited otter-watcher.” Read more here
Archive for the ‘Otters in Spain’ Category
Wildlife trip report to Extramadura
Monday, December 13th, 2010Otters no longer threatened
Sunday, June 7th, 2009The otter is no longer threatened in Spain and Portugal and now occupies almost the entire Iberian Peninsula, with populations only still under threat in Guipúzcoa, Almería and Alicante. As elsewhere in Europe, otter populations hit their nadir in the 1980s, but increased protection for wetlands and the animal itself, the banning of poisons such as DDT and the clean-up of rivers have allowed the nutria as it is known in Spanish to recover. The otter has for instance returned to the provinces of Barcelona, Gerona, Huesca, Navarra, La Rioja, Cantabria, Palencia, Segovia and Valladolid. ADN
Otter watching in the Catalan Pyrenees
Monday, February 9th, 2009Simon chanced upon this beautiful otter in the Catalan Pyrenees.
There could hardly seem a less promising place to go naturalising than the stretch of the Noguera Pallaresa just downstream from Tremp, ‘capital’ of the Pallars Jussà comarca in the Catalan pre-Pyrenees.
Asturian otters on video
Friday, February 8th, 2008Busybee of the forum has uploaded this rather nice video of otters feeding and playing in Arriondas, Asturias. The images from the second half (1m:30s) are excellent. Follow the forum thread
Or watch the video full size here
Photographing otters
Sunday, August 5th, 2007