Autumn has arrived on the Water of Leith – Oct 2025
Autumn is well and truly here and the colours around Edinburgh have been stunning this month. These colours have been complimented by some amazing sunrises & sunsets. Needless to say, the wildlife have also played their part.
The Otters
The otters on the Water of Leith have been out and about this month in daylight quite a bit. We have 3 otter mums at the moment spread from Dean Village to Balerno & they have 4 cubs between them. The mum that has 2 cubs has finally separated from them and they now roam on their own. The cubs may leave the river and head to the canal or down to the Forth or move further upstream into the Pentlands area.
This means that we have an otter mum without cubs so hopefully I can spot some mating activity very soon! The final bit of otter news is that the otter cub, in the Colinton to Balerno stretch of the river, is also at a stage that it may leave its mother very soon but there was no sign of that this month.
A Mink Returns To The Water
One area of concern this month was the appearance of a mink on the Water of Leith. It appeared at the end of August/beginning of September but it moved on fairly quickly. It re-appeared around the 20th Oct and worked its way up to the Water of Leith visitor centre by 23/24th Oct. I did a full blog post on the mink sightings which you can read here – Mink on the Water of Leith Oct 2025 – there is also information on what to do if you spot a mink on the river.
Here are some of the otter & mink shots from this month, plus a handful of other creatures spotted on my travels along the river.
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