Tarka the Otter (Box Clever Challenge - October)

I visited the Cotebrook Shire Horse Centre in the summer. Whilst the horses were stunning, it was the otters that held my attention. They were cheeky creatures, holding onto the wire fencing and making high pitched screeching noises. One of them just lay on his back and played with a stone; he was transfixed tossing it from one paw to another. I thought the poor creatures were bored and unhappy, but no...they were just passing the time as they knew their food was due to arrive soon. As soon as they saw their keeper, the stone was dropped and the screeching stopped, to be replaced by the hunting and satisfaction of munching fish in the long grass. A few weeks later I was visiting the Blue Planet Aquarium. They have an outside pen of otters too, and I witnessed them playing in and out of the water; otters splashing one another, finding "toys" in the undergrowth, and so I was spurred on to find my old copy of Tarka the Otter that I have had since childhood, but never rea