Ripples on the River

A celebration of the return of the otter to the UK's rivers and freshwater wetlands after a drastic decline in the twentieth century.

Ripples of excitement are spreading through Europe's rivers. A generation ago, otter watching was a wildlife highlight restricted to remote coastal areas--otter populations had been decimated over the previous century by pesticide poisoning and habitat disturbance. But recent decades have seen the positive effects of determined conservation efforts to clean up our waterways, and now otters are returning and spreading throughout their former habitats.

One of the UK's leading natural history photographers, Laurie Campbell, was delighted to discover otters on the Tweed, a river he has known all his life and the discovery launched him on a quest to create a photographic account of the lives of freshwater otters.

Two decades later, otter numbers have steadily increased, and new generations of otters in busier sites have become more confident around people, sometimes appearing in broad daylight. Laurie is dedicated to photographing wild creatures in their habitats and is acclaimed for his use of natural light and natural situations. Advances in technology have created cameras able to function in low levels of light, greatly enhancing the scope for photography at dawn and dusk, and his exquisite photographs reveal behavior and moments rarely captured by other nature photographers.

In this beautiful photographic book, extended captions by Anna Levin recount Laurie's observations as he photographs otters through the changing seasons. Together they weave a wealth of information about otter biology, ecology and behavior into the story the pictures tell, set in the context of the river system itself and the other wildlife that shares the otters' habitat.

Laurie Campbell has dedicated 50 years to photographing natural history, and he was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014 for the contribution his photography has made to nature conservation in Scotland. A multiple-prize winner in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, his photographs feature in a wide range of publications, including Country Living, Observer Magazine, The Field, Country Life, BBC Wildlife and in a long-running monthly column in Outdoor Photography. He is the author of The RSPB Guide to Bird and Nature Photography and his photographs have illustrated many books, including Highlands and Wild Scotland.
Anna Levin is an author and editor specializing in wildlife and the places where words and pictures meet. A former Editor with BBC Wildlife, she has been freelance for 20 years, working for a range of magazines, newspapers and environmental organizations. Her most recent book, Incandescent: We Need to Talk About Light addresses the impact of artificial light on human health and the natural world.