A NATURE reserve is celebrating after its first confirmed sighting of an otter with two cubs.
Visitors to Paxton Pits, Little Paxton, have occasionally seen otters at the reserve's lakes for the last four years, but this is the first time youngsters have ever been spotted.
And there is no doubting the sighting - they were captured on camera by wildlife enthusiast Jono Leadley, who was on a visit to Paxton Pits in search of the mammal after one of his colleagues spotted an otter fishing.
Jono, who is in charge of fundraising at The Wildlife Trust in Cambourne, spent the morning in pouring rain to spy the animals and spotted the female otter first.
He said: "For a moment I thought maybe I had seen a diving cormorant, but no, there it was - an otter, swimming on the surface and munching fish. I enjoyed fantastic views of only the second otter I have ever seen.
"After diving repeatedly, and catching many small fish, she caught a larger one, which she carried across the surface in her mouth to the bank on the eastern side of the lake."
The female otter then disappeared into bushes, but reappeared several minutes later and appeared to be taking food to feed youngsters.
But Jono was not certain there were cubs until several hours later, when a large otter cub appeared, followed by a second cub.
He said: "The other otter, which appeared to be a large cub, emerged from the water and joined its mother feeding on the large fish on the bank.
For the next 10 minutes there was lots of activity and I began to be a bit confused about how many otters I was looking at.
"Unfortunately, a tree obscured a lot of the action for a while and due to all the rolling around going on, I could not be sure if there was more than one cub.
"After a while, I became sure there were two cubs, as at one point the mother and a cub were wrestling together while a second cub was in the water."
The sighting is hugely important for the reserve, which has made a concerted effort to encourage the waterloving animals to the site.
Three years ago volunteers built an artificial holt, or otter home, at the reserve, with backing from Huntingdonshire District Council and Aggregate Industries, who own the quarry where the reserve is situated.