my first decent capture

Hey all, this is my first time posting a picture.If you only knew what I had to go through to get this picture!! Any tips would be appreciated, for I am still a beginner.
John

otters are very curious animals, but I have come to realise they are leary of humans. So I say you did a great job here!!!
Where do you live anyway(southern US obviously from that habitat)

Very nice first post. Hope you keep after them critters with your camera and show us more.

Very cute otter picture - I'm sure it took tons of patience and bad shots to get it!

Great capture! in great surroundings.

Thanks for all of your comments.I live in Geneva Florida on the St. Johns river. When my wife and I moved here, the only camera I had was a point and shoot.After observing 2 adult and 3 juvenile bald eagles playing on our beach, I soon realized that I had to have a good DSLR. The wildlife and scenery here is absolutely amazing! If anyone is in the central Florida area,I would be glad to "give a river tour" and maybe you could share some tips!:thumbsup: Let me know if anyone interested.I hopefully will post more as they come (missed a pileated woodpecker this A.M.:mad2: )
Thanks again
John

I've only seen one in the wild in 38 years... nice catch!

Big B, welcome to PR and great first post :thumbsup:

I would like to hear what you went through to get this shot. Also, is that a den hole in the background?

Thanks for the offer. I may take you up on that one. Do you have a website? I can only imagine what all you come across there. Quite different from the small patches of woods within the city that I'm used to.

Thanks everyone for the nice comments. This website has helped me in so many ways.
Today I ordered the Nikon 70-300 vr lense to help bring me closer to the critters. I think now I officially have the "lense envy bug".

Loupy, the story behind the otter, if it was on video, could have won me some money! My wife and I were in our pontoon boat going up a tributary called Deep Creek. This "creek" basically runs through a cypress swamp. We often see manatees, gators and tons of birds.At first we thought that it was a manatee but it turned out to be this little guy.He was swimming in front of us, then headed on land.(this is where the fun started).
I told my wife to pull over to the shore so I could get out and get some better shots.I thought that I would be stepping on solid ground, but it was actually 2 foot of swamp mud! Not to be deterred, I trudged through,lost both shoes, covered myself in stinky mud and FINALLY caught up to this guy. I quickly snapped about 20 or so pictures.Right after I took this photo he started chattering and made a charge for me!!! Back through the stinky mud, forget the shoes, dive on the boat and we laughed all the way home!!!!
I believe that he/she was protecting something, hence the aggresive behavior.(maybe some baby pics soon?)
Here is a pic of a oak tree growing through a cypress which kid of gives you an idea of the terrain.
John