Author, painter, aristocrat, crack shot, ardent wildfowler, racing driver, Scots Guard and social renegade, Gavin Maxwell was first and foremost a naturalist. He bore the scars, quite literally: a ring-tailed lemur once severed his tibial artery.
Throughout his life, the author of Ring of Bright Water was surrounded by animals. He had many pets, including a springer spaniel called Jonnie, a cocker called Judy, Giddy the pony, a heron, a blind vole, an owl called Andrew, Jackie the jackdaw, five Greylag geese, a wildcat kitten, a water rail, a herring gull, a hedgehog, Mary the cockerel, a Slovakian gull and a goat called Alftruda.
He also, of course, had several otters – Chahala, Mijbil, Mossy, Monday, Tibby, Edal and Teko. Indeed, his “thraldom to otters” made them all famous.
Born…
