Who doesn’t like hanging out on the dock in mid summer? We already know about the hundreds of gulls who like perching on the headwalk railing. But the dinghy dock also gets a fair number of visitors, as I’ve reported before in earlier Buckets. What I’m discovering is that the variety of birds and mammals varies seasonally.
The picture on right shows where we have the trailcam set up. It’s not on the main dock where the boat slips are, but on what’s called a dinghy dock, a side structure that usually functions as a place where people who have anchored their boats offshore can bring their skiffs to park temporarily while they go onshore. Since this dock is private, boaters can’t do that here, and the dinghy dock instead is a place to store stuff, like that emergency rubber raft and the mysterious yellow plastic barrel. We figured since this spot is not on the direct route from the road to the boat slips, there wouldn’t be a lot of human activity showing up on the trailcam. We were wrong.
Huge uptick in people last month, even over on the dinghy dock. Shouldn’t have been so surprising, since summer is when this dock gets used. Except for us, all the other slip owners put their boats in the water just for the summer, for fishing or crabbing. And there are a fair number of people who just like to wander around on the dock. The upshot of all this is that I saw a lot of legs in the trailcam captures, which increased toward the end of the month.
Among the other species who come by, the River Otters were the most common visitors in July, both day and night, every few days. Sometimes singletons, sometimes multiple otters, likely the same gang of yearlings we’ve seen before.
The otters poop on the dock in a certain spot regularly, which includes the portion of the dinghy dock to the right in these pics. They consider it a latrine.
One of the slip owners, an island year-rounder like us (unlike most of the slip owners) takes it upon himself to scrub the otter poop off the deck. Turns out he does that every 2-3 days! This guy only has his boat in the water here in summer, so this is a seasonal gig for him, in his shorts and sandals. Even so, very impressive. In winter the rain washes off the otter and seal poop.
Friendly Seal came by a few times, once in daytime. We have seen her on many occasions out swimming around during these past couple months but always by herself. No evidence of a pup this year. It’s possible she might have parked it somewhere but her demeanor has been leisurely, and that’s not how she acts when she’s lactating. When she’s supporting a pup, she fishes in a single minded way, nose to grindstone, packing on the calories.
Some animals show an interest in the trailcam, like the juv heron.
Once a dog stared at the trailcam, alerting its owner to the device’s presence. I included that in the following video.
I strung together a couple of minutes of clips from July’s footage, in chronological order. Dates and times are visible at the top of the frame.
July highlight reel:
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One clip has an animal that darts by too quick to ID. The camera is set to take one still and one video every time it senses motion, so I have some stills from the little critter scampering across the dock. It’s a mink. The several mink encounters were all at night.
At night the wildlife never crosses paths with humans. During daylight hours in winter, same, but in summer the situation is very different. I expect the critters find it kind of irritating when people keep showing up. For sure the otters do — we’ve seen them jump into the water after giving us a really dirty look when we appear. But overall, animals certainly like having the dock to rest on, far from the beach with all the foot and car traffic.
August is peak usage month for the human users of the dock. We’ll see who shows up in the trailcam at the end of this month.
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THE DAILY BUCKET IS A NATURE REFUGE. WE AMICABLY DISCUSS ANIMALS, WEATHER, CLIMATE, SOIL, PLANTS, WATERS AND NOTE LIFE’S PATTERNS.
WE INVITE YOU TO NOTE WHAT YOU ARE SEEING AROUND YOU IN YOUR OWN PART OF THE WORLD, AND TO SHARE YOUR OBSERVATIONS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW.
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Mostly sunny today in the PNW islands. Temps heading up into the low 70s. We had a little bit of rain yesterday in a brief thunderstorm.
WHAT’S UP IN NATURE IN YOUR AREA TODAY?