Thursday, November 13, 2014

River Otter


Every once in a while, I will see a river otter while I am photographing birds. They are not particularly skittish and here again, it may be because I do not do a lot of moving around.


The similar look between this image and the last (on two different days with two different otters) demonstrates their curiosity. I have never seen one out of the water.


I saw a little comedy at the marsh in North Beach one time while I was there filming birds. A tricolored heron decided to move to another location to fish and flew around part of the pond. It decided to alight on a rock in the water. Only thing was, it wasn't a rock; it was the head of a river otter that was swimming across the pond. Even though they are called a river otter, they can be found in almost any aquatic environment from rivers to creeks to marshes to open ocean.


A couple of days ago while I was filming some Canada Geese on the river, something caught my eye breaching the surface of the water and disappearing every few seconds. It turned out to be a pair of river otters, something I have never seen before. River otters are sensitive to pollution, so I am always glad to see them. It says something about a river that earns one of the worst water quality grades in the entire bay watershed (and I am not sure why).

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