My family and I discovered this otter while sight seeing along the North Shore just south of Grand Marais, MN. The otter was sitting on the ice along a pool of open water on the Temperance River, he had found a fish and was busy eating his late afternoon snack.

The otter seemed curious about our presence, but not overly concerned. He continued about the business of eating his lunch, and I photographed the event. Normally the trails along the river would have been busy with other tourists that likely would ended our encounter, however a lack of snow along the shore combined with the midweek day resulted in only a couple of brief interruptions. On each interruption, the otter would dive into the water with his fish and swim under the ice. After a minute or so, he would swim back and toss his fish back onto the ice and then crawl out of water and continue eating. Once the fish was gone, he slipped back into the water and disappeared under the ice.

In total, we stood and watched him for nearly thirty minutes, and I was able to shoot 248 pictures.
The shots were taken with a 500mm f/4 IS, some with a 1.4 extender, and all were hand held.

It was a great experience for my family and we hope that you enjoy viewing these photographs as much as we did taking them.


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