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The Daily Bucket - otter family beeline, from dock to woods [1]

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Date: 2023-09-05

September 2, 2023

Salish Sea, Pacific Northwest

A few days ago I was standing on the headwalk of the dock where we keep our boat, watching a sleepy romp of otters lounging on the neighboring dock. There are actually three docks in this protected bay, and otters frequent them all, but in summer they prefer that one because there’s less human activity (while all the docks are private, the other two are used by multiple boat owners; that one has one owner and they are present only a couple times a year).

The otters had been there for a while, judging by their dry fur. It was hard to tell how many were in the cuddle puddle!

Pile o’ otters

It wasn’t long before they woke up, and several broke away, jumping into the water.

The remaining otters began grooming each other. This kind of allogrooming is common amongst otters, and not surprising to see the largest of them busy with the youngsters, but even cuter seeing a baby grooming an adult (mom?).

(Pardon the jerkiness of all these videos. The dock is 350 feet away, the beach the other direction 500 feet, and I’m at maximum zoom)



Eventually everyone slipped into the bay, the last few joining the earlier otters. They headed my direction, and swam directly below the headwalk. I could look almost straight down at them there.

It becomes very clear how much more at home they are swimming underwater than on the surface. If it wasn’t for that pesky need to breathe! Even catching frequent breaths they traversed this sixth of a mile in 5 minutes, and they weren’t even hurrying.



The whole bunch keep going, in a straight line toward the beach, sometimes single file, other times abreast. The babies were having no trouble at all keeping up.

Once they reached the beach they all piled out. Something was of great interest to them there; they did a lot of sniffing near the water’s edge. The oldest otter kept an eye out, especially toward the road, to their left.



Besides the big otter, all the rest were smaller. Possibly equally small though that’s hard to judge at this distance. Once they emerged from the water I could see there were seven otters total. I’ve never seen or heard of five or six kits in a family but according to Alaska Dept of Fish and Game:

One to six pups (usually two or three) are born…. River otters are often found in groups. A family unit is made up of a female and her pups, with or without an adult male.

Adult male otters are bigger than females.

Can you get a sense of the relative sizes of these otters, which might reveal their ages — from the still photos or from the videos?

After checking out the beach, they all galumphed their way to the edge of the bank by a shed, and disappeared up into the woods.



Besides the delightful view of this otter family in action, what struck me is how purposeful they were in their direction. No dillydallying along the way, no fishing. It was a straight line from their resting spot on the dock to their forest destination. I just happened to be lucky enough to be standing above their route. Here’s some context for that beeline.

GoogleEarth image

View from beach. A=otter resting spot, B=my position on nearer dock headwalk, C=beach where they got out

I went up onto the road above the bank to see if there was any sign of their route from there.

The shed, with stair up to the road, docks in the distance

Turning around 180° I could see where they’d gone. That’s a well used otter path across the road up into the woods, which I’d never noticed before. The headland there is largely woods, with a few houses, mostly unoccupied.

It’s clear these local otters know the bay and surrounding land extremely well! They make use of our human infrastructure, while staying out of our way as much as possible. We humans may “own” these properties but they are home to otters more than to us.

🦦

Mostly sunny and calm in the PNW islands today. Temps in the 60s.

What’s up in nature in your neighborhood?

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