Subject: [Tweeters] Just The Otter Day.....
Date: Apr 23 16:45:22 2015
From: Jeff Gibson - gibsondesign at msn.com














Why, it was just the other day (like yesterday 4/22), here in Port Townsend, that turned into an Otter day! Otters all over the place.





The Otters, they come and they go, but a good place to see one is at the Marine Science Center here in PT, as I've posted about before - they like to haul out on the floating dock there - but yesterday was the best ever, at least in sheer numbers. Walking out the pier I spotted one right away, swimming in the clear water below the pier. It soon blooped up onto the float.,
Just then, I passed a quiet woman - the only other Hominid on the pier - who gently pointed out another Otter down the beach to the south "it looks like it's got something", she noted, and she was right; it was galumphing across the dunes with a fair sized flounder in it's jaws- heading inland, presumably to it's den under a log , or in the bank there. That was a fun sight.
Well, when there's an Otter around, the fun just keeps coming. Looking back down below the pier, more Otters showed up- a total of four were swimming around the dock. A few years ago, I posted a proposition to re-name the Mink the "Water Weasel". I still think that's a semi-brilliant idea, but really that name surely could apply to the River Otter.
And that is what I'm talking about here - Sea Otters are pretty much an outer ocean coast creature, but River Otters are common about the Salish Sea. Watching these long-tailed water weasels slink their way thru the Sound waters, was a real lesson in aqua dynamics. When somebody like me goes swimming, it pretty much looks like a mammal trying not to drown.Otters swim like water itself- a beautiful thing to see, and they can really move it. Aqua art.
So seeing five Otters was pretty cool. The four Otters by the float disappeared for a bit. and I went down the gangplank to the float. I was looking for plankton, but the viewing conditions weren't so hot. But I tried. Turning around, I was surprised to see three of the Otters up on the other end of the float - Otters are sorta nearsighted and they didn't see me too well, but then they did, but I'm a slow moving fellow, and don't mean no harm, so they stayed on the dock doing more fun Otter things. The three were all squirming around in a pile, like a love knot, like Mustelid macram? . Pretty cute.
Oh sure, they're cute, but don't try to pet one: these carnivores got some gnarly teeth, and know how to use 'em!
Jeff GibsonPort Townsend Wa