Jasper meets Otto the Otter on a trip to the lake

Hello Boys and Girls, HOW are you all this week and I hope you are enjoying your last few weeks in school before the long summer holidays. Wait until I tell you about the other night. It was such a lovely evening that my friend Peter took me out on the lake in his boat for a spot of fishing. That's the great thing about this time of the year, you can do things all day and still do something else in the evening. Anyway, there we were relaxing in his boat and casting our lines when out of the corner of my eye I saw a movement near a little island. Luckily, I had my binoculars with me and I was able to see it was a fine big otter heading out fishing as well. What a beautiful sight. The water was like glass, the sun was just going down and the sky was a lovely warm reddish orange. And there was this wonderful otter swimming along leaving a big V in the water behind him. Peter told me he thought he knew him and called him Otto the Otter. This was one of Peter's favourite fishing spots and the otter lived on the island in the lake. He often saw him coming and going if he was still on the lake as it was getting a bit darker in the evening. Do you know what the Irish name for otter is? Well it's madra uisce. Madra means dog and uisce means water so an otter in Irish is a Waterdog. There are really quite a lot of otters in Ireland but they are very shy creatures and mostly come out at night. Animals who come out at night are called nocturnal. Otters can be quite big and sometimes when they are swimming people mistake them for dogs. They live on riverbanks, in lakes and along the seashore as they must stay near water to feed on fish. I have a friend who says otters are the punks of the water because when they are on land their fur is often all spiky like a punk's hairdo. This is because the otter keeps out the cold by trapping air in an under-layer of fur. An oily outer layer folds over this to keep the air in while swimming underwater. When it comes back on land it shakes out the trapped air and its fur gets spiky. Do you know that otter are related to badgers, pinemartins and stoats. They are our largest land mammal after deer. The whale, of course, is our largest mammal but it is a sea creature. Some fishermen don't like otters because they say they eat too many fish. That's a bit rich. I've never seen a fat otter but I've seen plenty of fat fishermen who obviously eat too much of everything, including fish. All creatures have to share this planet and animals like otters already have to put up with the pollution to our rivers and lakes caused by humans and the destruction of their habitats. Nobody should begrudge them their dinner, don't you think? Bye for now, Uncle Jasper. BIG HELLO A BIG hello to all the boys and girls at Barnaderg school who received their third Green Flag recently. Thank you all for being so nice to my friend Tony when he visited to take your photograph. Keep up the good work. The otters and other animals will be safer now that you are keeping an eye on the environment. Congratulations. CROSSWORD Thank you all for trying the crossword. I hope it wasn't too hard. Sometimes Aunt Molly says I make them too difficult and she has trouble doing it. She says it's unfair that adults can't enter but I say that it's for boys and girls and there are plenty of other crosswords around for adults. One person who has no difficulty doing crosswords is Joseph Fahy  from Stovelodge, Barnaderg who is this week's winner. Good boy Joseph, your prize is in the post. Across: 1. The haunted house was very Sâ€â€Ã¢€â€y 2. Dive in, the Wâ€â€Ã¢€â€ is lovely. 3. Nâ€â€ to the shop and get some milk. 4. In summer we go to Salthill Sâ€â€Ã¢€â€d. Down: 1. Tom Sâ€â€y-r had great adventures. 2. An animal Jasper met on the lake Oâ€â€-r. 3. A girl's name Kâ€â€-n. 4. The rugby player was Câ€â€-d for Ireland.