The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Rain, sun, wind...insects, birds, flowers...meteorites, rocks...seasonal changes...all are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us.
August 26-27 2015
Salish Sea, PNW
They've been leaving little presents on the boat for months now - lumps of runny gooey stinky scat filled with fragments of crabshells - but a couple of days ago for the very first time we surprised two otters on top of the aft cabin doing...something. We were paddling out to the boat in our kayaks ready to take Elansa out for a spin, and we all saw each other at the same moment.
The otters watched us intently as our kayaks approached. Then one slithered further down, waiting to see if we were really heading their way. Yep.
(All photos by me. In Lightbox...click to enlarge)
It's an easy jump down onto the swim-step and a silent splash into the water.
The other otter waited a bit from where s/he'd been working by the canvas, but then opted for the deep once we got within 20 feet. The swim-step there makes it really easy for me to haul myself up onto the boat from a kayak, but obviously it's a perfect step for otters too.
Once we got onto the boat it became clear what they'd been doing. No poop piles this time, but the bottom corner of the canvas was wet and chewed. This isn't the first time somebody's been at this corner. Elansa's canvas was already 10 years old when we bought her (a 1972 Albin-25) a year ago, and now the zipper stitching is gone and the fabric shredded. We've been clamping a towel over the opening as an ad hoc temporary blockade, but the otters clearly see it as the next challenge. We REALLY do not want otters inside the cabin. Otter parties are wild and crazy, and they do NOT clean up after themselves ;-)
Incidentally, that's gull poop splashed onto the canvas from where they perch on top of the main cabin. Yes, I know...to wildlife the boat is just another handy surface to occupy when we people don't get in the way. And I don't begrudge the gulls, herons, cormorants, osprey, kingfishers, otters and who knows what else the outside (we rigged up a pump, to clean off the mess periodically). I do draw the line at inside the cabin though.
The very next day, I brought out supplies - upholstery thread, big needles, a thimble - and sewed up the worst of the damage (I won't show a picture of that or the bent needles: this is the ugliest mending job I've ever done and I'm not much of a seamstress to start with. heh). However now it zips, and the grommets and twist-fasteners can be used. We'll just see how long my repair job lasts.
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I wonder if these were the same otters we saw a week earlier on the headland by this bay. They were scampering across the dry moss as we cruised by...
...saw us and immediately ran down the vertical face of the rocky promontory (we're on the shady side here so they are a bit hard to see). Invariably otters head for the water when they feel at all uneasy. Even if empty woods are closer and they have to pass by a person to get to the water, they will streak past you to dive in, swimming underwater a surprising distance. River otters are more comfortable in the water than on land from what I've seen.
The one in the front waits, watching us, til her or his companion reaches the waterline, then they both disappear in quick noiseless dives. I scanned the area for several minutes but saw no sign of them surfacing nearby.
These looked like two equal-size otters, so aren't likely to be a mom and cub, but they looked smaller than the grizzled old-man otter who is the boss of this bay. Most otters are loners. Might these be buddies from last year's litter? If so where are the other three I saw last winter and spring?
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I went down to the bay last night to watch the glorious sunset, clouds sweeping in before the storm front that brought rain later that night. Elansa floats quietly at her buoy. No otters in sight.
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All nature observations welcome in the comments.
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