An Otterly Fantastic Week in the West

It was lovely to return to the West Coast of Scotland for a week in November 2024. Morvern has become one of my favourite places and it’s always a joy to go back. Scotland experienced something of a heat wave in November, temperatures at times were higher than our summer (which was truly awful). However, my trip coincided with our first proper cold spell which suited me fine!

When I was over in Morvern for a long weekend back in October 2023, I visited the Ardtornish Estate. I was on a day’s guiding with Peter Guthrie of Days in the Wild. The weather was wild! Major flooding which blocked many roads and near darkness at times. However, otters don’t mind, and we watched a pair mating on Loch Aline. (more on this trip in an earlier blog: https://karenmillerphotoblog.com/2024/07/09/experiencing-scotlands-wild-side-morvern-ardnamurchan-peninsula/)

On that day we walked past one of the rental cottages, The Boat House. It looked amazing with wonderful views over the loch and I immediately went online to investigate. The accommodation here is a tad too expensive for me during the peak season, but the winter prices were do-able, so my friend Gemma and I booked the week in November. Days are short, but in my experience it can be a really good time of year for wildlife sightings.

The cottage didn’t disappoint. Comfortable and cosy inside with fantastic views out of the patio doors. The loch is home to plenty of wildlife including little grebes, greenshank, widgeon, mallards, curlew and more. White-tailed sea eagles fly over and otters fish and frolic. Pine martens visit every evening. The estate itself is beautiful, especially when complimented by snow-covered hills.

On my last visit to Morvern in May I stayed in one of the Rahoy Estate cottages. It was lovely too, although more basic. Every night we hoped for pine marten, but a female badger came in first and ate everything! This was still fab to see, but I have badgers in my garden.

On the first night at The Boathouse, I put out a handful of peanuts and a little honey, plus one light, hoping a marten might appear at some point over night and know that this was going to be a good week for treats. At 7.30pm one appeared, taking us completely by surprise. A female I think, and she kept looking to the right as she scoffed the nuts. About 10 minutes later a smaller marten leapt onto the wall, probably a 2024 kit. They stayed there together until all the food was gone then disappeared into the night. I didn’t take any photographs as the light wasn’t good enough, but it was fantastic to watch and I was hopeful this would be a nightly occurrence.

Every night after that we had one marten visiting. On the 2nd night I think it was the older female, but after that it was the youngster. She was more nervous and would stay for a couple of minutes, then dart off, only to return again. It was so cold that they were obviously grateful for the extra food.

On the Wednesday, much to my delight we had falling snow. I was excited at the prospect of photographing a marten as it fell. This would have been possible except that the marten turned up early at 5.30pm. I’d put out the food, but not the lights as yet! Typical. I pointed a light outside from the cottage but it caused reflections annoyingly!

She did come back a bit later though, so I do have snowy nose images.

On the first day we walked to the old castle, a few miles along the loch.

Uneventful except we saw a family of three otters! They came on shore briefly then swam to the right and disappeared, probably into a holt or couch. We continued on to the castle and looked for them on our return journey but saw nothing until we were close to The Boat House. The light was fading fast but I spotted two otters and although one vanished, the other fished in front of the cottage until we could no longer see. Awesome!

The great thing about the view from The Boat House, was that we could sit in the warmth and watch for otters, only going out once we’d spotted them – a much more comfortable way to wildife spot than I’m used to. We did this on the Wednesday and Thursday. On the Wednesday the family of three were fishing on the far side of the loch, so we wrapped up warm and walked round. They stayed out in the loch for the most part – sometimes in heavy snow.

We had a real surprise when a second family of three also appeared! They obviously knew each other as at one point the two groups came close together. It would have been fantastic if they’d all come on shore together, but it was the first time I’ve seen that many otters at once. Too far out for photographs, but here’s a little video.

The original family did come on to shore a couple of times – also in falling snow, although it wasn’t too obvious. We watched the siblings sitting on the shore while mum headed out to fish for a little longer.

It was a great afternoon. Watching otter families is one of my favourite things to do. It’s such a privilege to observe their behaviours. I always think it’s hard to capture the interactions on camera, but it’s so very special to behold.

Thursday was a dark, dark day. The sun barely came out. We had rain, sleet and snow. This didn’t affect the otters though and the family were out again. They spend longer on shore, but conditions were so poor and my shutter so low I didn’t really come away with many useable images. Again, a joy to watch though. One of the cubs is more needy than the other, and quite clingy with mum. It could often be found clambering onto Mum’s back.

Not content with watching our local otters, we headed over to Mull for the day on Friday. I took Gemma to one of my favourite otter-watching sites and we struck gold even before we got there when I noticed an otter on a shore line close to the road. We watched this one as it meandered along the shore, stopping to groom and chill every so often. I think it was aware of us sitting in the car, but wasn’t particularly bothered and certainly not stressed at all.

Once this otter had returned to fishing out in the loch we continued to our final destination. Relatively quiet, which was nice, and I sat watching an otter fishing far out at sea. She came in briefly then headed out again. A few minutes later I noticed that she was fighting something in the water. It took ages for her to subdue whatever it was and bring it in to shore. At times it looked as though it was a big stick, but it was actually a large dog fish. She dragged it on to the shingle beach and chomped on it for a few minutes.

Then, surprisingly, she abandoned it. She wasn’t disturbed, but I think she must just have been exhausted! She swam a short way along to coastline and came back on land for a full groom

…and a snooze.

About 30 minutes later she returned to the dog fish to continue her meal, fortunately nothing had come down / out and stolen it! We left her be at this point to enjoy her dinner. So impressive that she could hunt and kill such a large fish.

We did photograph a few other species. For example, feral goats:

And some young red deer stags:

Disappointingly our only white-tailed eagle sightings were in very poor light, but good to see.

So all in all it was a great week – Morvern never disappoints, whatever the weather and the Ardtornish Estate was the perfect base. I hope to return to both next year sometime.

That’s it for holidays this year though. I’ve just started my winter wildlife tours which take me through to early March. Those are fully booked but I do have a little availability for local species (red squirrels and crested tits). The first one went well and we even had red deer in a heavy snow shower!

I still have a few 2025 calendars available. You can find them, as well as cards and prints on my Etsy site.

Finally I’m also planning my summer season. My intention is to offer guiding in Perthshire & surrounding areas for beavers and other species plus the West Coast for seabirds, this will be June, some of July and August as I am spending most of May in Borneo (so excited!) and possibly time on Orkney in July. To stay up to date please join my mailing list – I don’t send many emails, so you want be inundated / irritated!

(All images taken with a Nikon Z8, copyright Karen Miller Photography, all rights reserved).