A ‘PRAYING otter’ has won the hearts of staff after being photographed by a visitor at a popular mid-Cheshire attraction.
The team at Cotebrook Shire Horse Centre near Tarporley judged Marian Wade’s picture one of the best in their recent photographic competition.
Runty the otter is one of three brothers that can be seen at the award-winning attraction on the A49.
Centre owner Alistair King said: “If you didn’t know any different you would think Runty was a statue the way he is posing in the photograph.
“I can’t quite believe he stayed so still - usually the otters are so busy scurrying around their enclosure.”
Dozens of photographs were entered into five different categories including Shire horse, farm and wild animals, landscape, Cotebrook funnies and children’s pictures.
Terry Fisher won the Shire horse category with his image of a bouncing foal, Paul Sherriff took first place in the landscape category and Michael Schofield’s picture of a colourful mandarin duck took the wild animals group.
Alistair said: “We had such fun looking through all the entries and yet again the animals really did perform for the cameras. Anyone would think they have done this a million times before. I think they must be destined for stardom.”
Winners received a year’s free membership to the centre, a Shire horse model and will also see their winning shot appear in the centre’s 2010 visitor leaflet which is distributed across the North West. In addition, a selection of the best entries are being displayed at the centre.
Following the success of this competition the centre will be running another one during the summer months.