I've Seen the Tracks...Now Here Are the River Otters!

I was starting to think that otters are invisible...I've seen tracks on the sand bar near Index, on Osprey Swamp at the school land, and at several of the interesting places I've gone on field trips...but no otters. Then, the day before Thanksgiving, I needed to get my oil changed. I dropped my vehicle off at the garage and walked up hill to the trail at McCormick Park. I thought I'd walk a while until they called me to come get my car.

Five hours later, I got the call...still, I felt like I'd had a great day, and I would not have seen this pair if it had only taken the hour I expected. The River Otter (Lontra canadensis) is a member of the mustelidae family. They are both playful and wicked carnivores - kind of like me!

This pair seemed to enjoy looking at me as much as I enjoyed watching them...they hung around for about 20 minutes while I shot pictures until my camera battery ran down. I'm really glad that I got to see these beautiful animals - the trail is just 2 blocks from Highway 203, and the trail is used by walkers (with or without dogs), bikers, and the occassional horseback rider. Who would guess that otters would live so close to such an active trail?

Big Fish

For those of you who thought I don't know that a Bullfrog is an amphibian and not a reptile, give yourselves 30 points for noticing...Writers need editors, and mine was asleep at the keyboard.

My vacation adventures continued and I feel really lucky to have seen a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodius) catch a fish that was almost too big for it to swallow! I often see the big bird at McCormick Park and have taken many, many pictures of it. Some of them have even been good. I've watched it hunting and have missed the chance to get a pic of it diving after fish.

On Thursday afternoon, I was there with the camera when I noticed the critter was stalking it's prey. As I shot pics, it sank deeper into the water and slowly stretched out it's neck...and I missed the shot of the dive.

It came up with a fish - a big fish - and moved to shore. From the far bank, I took picture after picture as it tried to figure out how to eat the fish...I could see the fish flopping and watched the bird try to maneuver it into position...The bird paced the shoreline, shook the fish, used it's feet to try to turn it...The fish continued to flop.

Many pics later, and after I started to fear that the bird would choke on it's meal, it finally managed to swallow the fish. What a lucky time to be passing by with a camera!

I am trying to upload some pics, but there are "errors" so I'll try again later.

Silly Bird...

I found this beautiful Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) in the swampy area just behind the police station at McCormick Park in Duvall. I must have taken 50 pictures of it...40 of them so nearly alike - standing still, pearing into the soup for fish- that I could delete most of them and not miss anything interesting.

I got ready to shoot another picture every time the bird tensed. Still, I missed the dive! I did get a good one of shaking off the water, though. I love the "horns" in that one! What an undiginfied look for such a beautiful bird.