IT was March 3, 2021, and Billy Mail was standing on the pontoon at his house in Shetland, gazing over the serene water as the late winter sunlight glistened in the ripples.

When a young otter scrambled onto the deck beside him, crunching on a crab, Billy was surprised because otters usually keep their distance.

Immediately noticing how thin she was, Billy worried she wasn't going to survive and began to feed her.

In the days afterwards, the otter returned again and again, and a bond formed between the pair, so much so that he gave her a name.

"Molly was desperate, starving, and she was probably going to die," Billy said. "She was eating crabs, which is a bad sign, because it takes more energy to catch them than they get out of them. Her bones were hanging out, her flesh falling off. When animals are desperate, they seem to know humans can help them.

"Otters are not given to be friendly towards humans, but she made that connection, and she didn't really have any fear, and that lack of fear turned to curiosity.

"She took a step towards us, and we took a step towards her, and the rest is history."

While Billy was helping Molly, what Molly wasn't to know was how much she was helping him, too. Life had been hard, hectic, in the time before Molly turned up at Billy's feet. His parents had passed away, Covid was ongoing, and the building work he and wife Susan were doing on their home was bogged down in the usual headaches of planners, architects and builders.

"Our life was consumed by all of that, so she was a wee breath of fresh air.

"I'd called the local wildlife sanctuary, which specialises in nursing otters and seals back to health.

They gave me the nod with regards to feeding her."