My most unusual wildlife encounters are rarely when I’m trudging through a wildlife refuge with a camera in hand. The most amazing wildlife encounters always seem to happen when I don’t have my gear with me. Earlier this week, I was at a busy park when I encountered an unusual animal that I had never photographed in the wild before: a river otter. The longest lens I had on me? Just a 90mm prime I use for portraits.
I went to the park to enjoy some unseasonably warm temperatures for October in Michigan. I had some new kid cameras to test for my role as the US Editor for Digital Camera World, but at the last minute I grabbed my mirrorless camera and a 90mm prime so that I could take photos along with my kids.
I went to a riverside park that’s so busy; the most unusual wildlife that I’ve ever seen there is the very common mallard duck. There’s a playground with kids screaming, a pedestrian bridge full of joggers, and a loud highway nearby – it’s one of the last places that I would think to go for wildlife photography.
Imagine my surprise then, when, as we were walking across the pedestrian bridge, my 7-year-old shouted, “Look, an otter!”
My first thought was that my son had probably spotted the more common but similarly shaped muskrat. Instead, when I peered over the bridge into the river, I was greeted with the tell-tale ears, large nose, whiskered face, and narrow tail of the North American River Otter.
Only wildlife photographers will understand the mix of wild excitement at spotting an unusual animal mixed with the imminent dread of being wildly unprepared for such an encounter. I had a bag full of single-digit megapixel kid cameras – and my Fujifilm X-T4 with the 90mm f/2 R LM WR lens.
The 90mm lens – equivalent to a 135mm on full frame – is a lens that I picked up for the creamy background separation of a longer focal length for portraits. The lens, while lovely, isn’t what I would grab for wildlife. I prefer something with more reach, like a 400mm or 600mm lens.
Still, standing on the bridge over the river, I was so close that I could actually hear him crunching on the fish and crayfish that he was catching. I had never been close enough to photograph a wild otter before (the zoo doesn’t count), so I grabbed my 90mm and hoped for the best.
Adding to the challenge, the evening light was uneven. The otter would swim under the shadow of the bridge, then back into bright sunlight.
I wish I had had a super telephoto with me to catch his whiskered face as he popped up from the water with a crayfish in his mouth just below me. Still, the river was spotted with colorful fall leaves, and the otter was having a good old time swimming and catching fish, unbothered by the noise and people around the park.
I managed to get a few environmental “portraits” of the otter. The images certainly aren’t magazine cover-worthy, but the experience brought a smile to my face – and that’s what really mattered.
I did, however, feel like I was standing inside a real internet meme – you know, the one about all the wildlife disappearing as soon as photographers grab their actual wildlife photography gear. Because, of course, I would see an unusual animal while out testing kid cameras and not a new wildlife lens.
The otter encounter is far from the only time that I wished I had a super telephoto lens with me. I’ve spotted countless unusual wildlife opportunities while driving, and once spotted an unusual bird in a grocery store parking lot and then too, I wished my wildlife kit wasn’t so heavy or expensive that I could bring it everywhere with me.
The North American River Otter was once a rare sight in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, but in recent years, the species population has rebounded – a sign of cleaner, healthier riverways. The North American River Otter is the only species of the 13 types of otters in the US that are not considered vulnerable, threatened, or endangered.
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