THE ORIGINS OF THIS BLOG, OTTER VIDEO

So I am semi-retired now and am spending a bit of my mornings on the pond.  I started keeping a pond journal, but today it occurred to me that it would be great if others added their observations and we could share what we've seen and noticed.

With that, I'll start with my first few pages of my journal.

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 Thursday, September 20, 2012

Ah, retirement…

Doesn't get much better than an autumn dawn paddle on a misty pond!  Then I watched the muskrat make his busy trips from one side to the other.  The phoebes were making their chirping call so loudly that Blake started growling!  

There was a redtail having an altercation with some crows - looked like she was chasing them, though.  

THEN, I watched two otters play for about 10 minutes.  They'd surface nose to nose, then dive again.  Then come up and wrestle.  Then off to chase under water.  A third otter came and just checked in a couple times, but didn't play (mom?).  

One of them spied my boat and their heads and half of the body came up out of the water staring at me.  They moved closer and closer.  Curious.  Finally they were about 10 feet from the bow of my boat, coming up and staring.  Blake was not happy about this, but he kept quiet for me.  Finally they left, and after visiting the wood ducks, I came in so the critters could have their pond.

Magical morning.

 

 Friday, September 21, 2012

Carol joined me this morning.  I managed to see the brown furry thing that goes back and forth across the pond just after dawn well enough today to decide that it was a muskrat.  The head/body was smaller than the otter, but today I saw the tail.  We saw one of the cormorants and some wood ducks, a couple of phoebes, but they seem to be leaving – cool and not many bugs left.  No otters.

  Sunday, September 22, 2012

Linda & I (and Blake) went out today, and while trying to get a better view of the osprey, we saw 4 or 5 otters!!.  I spotted a disturbance in the water among the water chestnuts and I watched, then saw another black back and another.  AH!  An otter! Hmph.  Gone.  But there is motion in the tree that has fallen down in the water.  Sure enough, among the leaves I found this large, wet furry thing!  Mama otter.  Pretty soon a little head showed up and swam up to mama.  Then another and one more!  Three younguns.  They nuzzled in.  Awww...

Before long mama dove and disappeared, but the young ones started playing in the weeds.  I had brought my little camera and got it out, but Blake spotted the critters, too!  He wanted to go play!!  I did manage to get a bit of footage (hmmm  inchage?  It is about 10 seconds), but you can hear Blake whining and see what his wiggling was doing to my steadiness - it is hard enough to shoot in a canoe.  :-)  

While I was managing the dog & camera, Linda thought she saw FIVE of them!  Mama came up and was hissing at us - get OUT OF HERE!

Amid this excitement, we also did see an osprey – first one I’ve seen this year and I’m not even sure we saw any last year.  It has been a bad couple of years on the pond because of the water chestnut invasion. 
 

 Monday, September 24, 2012

Another very special morning!  Chilly, 40 degrees, and very misty on the pond.  Blake & I were out in the pre-sunrise dawn light.  We watched the muskrat, who was busy heading across the pond.  I think he saw us though, ‘cuz he suddenly turned around and went home.  Maybe something else was there.  OH!  That’s where I saw the otter later.  Maybe that spooked him, because we really weren’t very obvious or making sound.  The muskrats move SOOO fast!

 

We paddled toward the dam, stopping to take a few pictures of the sunrise. We saw the east end heron and then later, saw the west end heron.  I steered away from the heron so that we wouldn’t disrupt it in its morning vigilance. 

As we came back up the south side of the pond I watched the kingfisher for a while; he certainly was making a racket with his rattling cry!  I am still hoping to some day see one catch a fish…  Speaking of racket, the redtail was calling from one side and the crows cawing from the east end.

As we approached the heavy water chestnuts, I was scanning to see if I could spot the busy muskrat (saw him again later as I was bringing the canoe up).  I turned to look ahead in the chestnuts and there was the black back of an otter!  But what’s that big patch of white?  Must have a piece of vegetation stuck on her head.  Dove again, up again, dove again, up again, and still the white.  OH!  It is breakfast!  It has a fish!  It went into the bushes and probably up on shore.  I didn’t bother it by following, but went off to look at more wood ducks.

(More tomorrow - I've got a vid of the harvester working on the water chestnuts that I'll post tomorrow)