March 12, 2023: Otters Like Snow Too

After a slow start the winter of 2023 is turning into a good one for snow fans, human and animal alike.  There's a deep snow pack now to protect the roots of sensitive plants and to provide refuge for the creatures that find safety in the subnivian zone.  Of course, predators such as foxes and owls whose survival depends on catching the animals that are now hiding under the snow aren't having an easy winter, and neither are large animals such as deer and moose that need to move around through the deep snow to forage for food.  But the one animal that truly enjoys the snow just for the fun of it is the otter.  On a snowshoe trip along the shore of Lake Wicwas we found lots of otter tracks and slides running all up and down over the slopes near the lake.

River otter slides up and down through the woods,

and onto the lake.

Even on the flats the otter would take a few hops and then slide a long way on its belly, sometimes paddling itself along with its feet.  

Along flat areas too.

We also found the holes in the ice where the otters had popped up from under the frozen lake.

A secret passage that lead to the lake.

Near one of the holes was an otter latrine where it did its business.

Otter scat is easily identifiable by its loose form and its contents of essentially 100 percent fish scales.

There's always a lot of fish scales in otter scat - because fish is almost their entire diet.

Based on the track I think there were at least two otters romping around in the snow together.  I don't get many opportunities to see river otters in person, but here's a picture of one I saw last April just as the ice was leaving the lake.

An otter belly-slides across the melting ice.

 

On our snowshoe trip we also saw a bobcat trail and even a spot in the snow where it had bedded down for a time to watch for any careless red squirrels that might come by for dinner.  No pictures of these however.  

In the midst of all this I received a reminder that motion towards spring continues regardless of the snow.  A Wicwas loon-watcher was at York Harbor, Maine this week and saw some loons in the Atlantic Ocean, and they have put on their summer breeding plumage! 

A common loon in York Harbor, Maine.  Photo by Lynne McMahon.

Lynne sent a couple of pictures - what an encouraging sight to see!  I always hope that someday, somewhere, someone will see one of our banded loons in the ocean so we'll know where they go in winter.

Like the otters, I've been having fun sliding on all this snow, including a fabulous trip with family up to Jay Peak in Vermont, where it is definitely still winter, and will be for many more weeks.

A wintery scene in northern Vermont, five miles from Canada.

There aren't many visible signs of spring around here yet, but the plumage on those loons proves that the season is coming.