Last Saturday a man decided that he wanted to revisit the little river which he first knew long ago as a teenager - already a keen angler. It ran in the family. Then interest was heightened when a relative announced that when he was on the river a week before, he had seen an otter. Now otters, long a feature of life there, had vanished several years before, perhaps following the disastrous fire upstream which had damaged - but not quite wiped out - much of the life in the water for miles downstream from Mullagh. The people in the house had enjoyed their occasional daily appearances (for they are mostly creatures of the night), such as a mother obviously teaching the young how to dive and search. Yes, otters take fish, but have they not as much right as the people who live on the river? Their prints on the mud or on the occasional winter snow, showed how diligently they searched for prey, crisscrossing the river again and again, where they climbed up the bank and down. And slid. Henry Wiliamson in his fine book Tarka the Otter tells how they love making mudslides on the banks and into the water. The otter seen by the earlier visitor had probably been watching for a long time from the other bank before our man looked up to meet the stare of what was his first otter. It stared on, then disappeared into a hole. But they are curious creatures. A few minutes later our friend realised he was being watched again, from the top of the bank. Then went his way. Did this mean that otters were established again on the Moynalty or Borora river?
Anyway, last Saturday the angler first-mentioned examined the territory for signs of the animal - spraints or droppings are the best guide. None. Prints in the mud where they might be expected to land? None. Shame. Perhaps this was just an inspection tour. As to fish in the river, the man who had known it intimately for 40 years took his rod, and found mainfold evidence of fish life, but not the trout he desired. It was all salmon parr - about four inches, hatched in the early months of 1999, and, with a couple of inches added by summer or early autumn will go down to the sea. Our man, seeking trout and hooking only these parr, and carefully putting them back in the water, put away his rod. The small fish grown huge, will return eventually to spawn in these waters in their turn and extend the centuries-long momentum. Millennium maybe. No dippers at this time, though the kingfisher has returned from his winter quarters down by the sea. There are still some small trout, Gerry Farrell, the king of the river says. No man knows better. He it was who urged after the disaster "Let Nature cure our river." She is doing so.