Today my usual six-mile paddle included an extraordinary encounter with river otters. I was about 1-1/2 miles downriver from the Sauvie Island Bridge, near the mainland shore, and saw four little heads popped up in the water looking at me. I recognized immediately that they were otters. I stopped paddling, got out my camera and waited. They went underwater and came up and looked at me, repeating this three or four times. One scrambled up on shore and ran into the woods.
As I floated downriver, the other three otters stayed around my kayak, surfacing and then going under. I kept trying to take photos but it seemed like every time I'd get them in the frame they'd go underwater.
Then at one point they disappeared, and then showed up just behind me scampering on a fallen log. I turned my kayak around and they stayed long enough to pose and watch me for me to take these photos.
Then two of them went on another log and I got a few photos of them. After that they turned and went upriver. I watched to see if they would surface, but didn't see them again. As far as I can recall, the only time I've ever seen more than one otter at once in the wild was kayaking years ago in Elkhorn Slough outside Monterrey, California -- and that place is a marine preserve known for its abundance of otters.
No comments:
Post a Comment