In the lyrical Otter Country, Miriam Darlington chronicles her quest to find, observe, and connect with river otters in her native Britain. These animals--sleek, graceful, and increasingly endangered--have long captured the imagination of naturalists and nature lovers. Darlington (The Wise Hours) charts her journeys through British landscapes in pursuit of otters, and she shares a wealth of knowledge about their feeding, parenting, and territorial habits.
Darlington begins her quest in Scotland and then returns to her home in Devon, the setting for the 1927 novel Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson, which famously dramatized the life of a wild otter. She travels to varied locales in search of otters, tracking them by their prints or their dung (known as "spraint") and consulting experts about the otters' whereabouts. Along the way, she observes other river wildlife such as herons, minks, and insects; camps in all seasons and all weather; and learns a great deal about climatological change in Britain and the effects of human habitation--and industrialization--on otters and their delicate river habitats.
Part scientific exploration, part memoir, Darlington's book is also a tribute to the beautiful indifference of the natural world. She examines the ways humans tend to personify wild creatures and the effects (both positive and negative) of this approach on those creatures' well-being. Admitting that otters and other wild creatures are ultimately unknowable, Darlington nevertheless makes a stunning case for preserving (or restoring) their habitats and contributing to a world in which both human and otter can flourish. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams