Otter numbers rising

Recently I spent some time in and around the village of Corofin in Co Clare. The headwaters of the River Fergus flow through this area and form a maze of small and medium-sized lakes connected by river channels. 

It’s on the eastern fringe of the Burren and the landscape is very distinctive. The water is amazingly clear and on a calm, sunny day you can see right down to the bed of a lake.

Wandering along the lake shores it soon became obvious that there was a large population of otters in the area. I didn’t see any of them, they tend to be shy and nocturnal, but I saw plenty of signs of their presence. In particular I found their distinctive droppings, or spraints, deposited on top of prominent boulders on the lake shore. Otters deposit their spraints, which are full of fish bones, to mark their territory, using the same sprainting stone, also called a ‘seat’, each time.