Early spring breakthrough

The otter that rose from the waters of the River Suir at Kilsheelan, Co. Tipperary, made my wife jump.

She was walking on the edge of the riverside path, part of the East Munster Way, when it surfaced all but under her feet. She called out and I rushed to join her.

If there had been an otter, it was gone. But what appeared to be a flat, black strap was protruding from the trailing water-weed and drifting with it in the current. It looked like the tail of an enormous eel — the fact that I’d caught eels in the Suir as a child, with a cork as a float and a worm as bait, might have brought this to mind.