January 7, 2024: Otters Under the Ice

We finally have ice-in on Lake Wicwas.  It was called yesterday, January 6th, after a few cold nights.  It's the latest ice-in date on record, matching the prior record set on January 6, 2015, and the third time we haven't had full ice cover by the end of December.  Here's the ice-in trend over the past 22 years along with the linear best-fit trend line.

The historical data for ice-out and the number of days of ice cover are just as disturbing.  

Two days before ice-in we had a quiet, perfectly calm morning, and I was standing at the edge of the lake enjoying the view of thin ice that covered about 80% of the lake at that time.  

Being calm, I was surprised when I heard water sloshing at my feet - there was no wind to make waves and certainly no boats.  Next I heard air moving - again, strange.  Water and air bubbles visible under the clear ice were suddenly moving and I heard increased air noise like blowing.  It started to dawn on me that there was an animal under the ice near a small opening at the shoreline.  Was it a beaver?  A muskrat?  Maybe a mink?  Suddenly there was streak of brown visible through the ice, and a fast, slender animal flashed away underneath the clear black ice.  It was undoubtedly an otter!  I waited quietly and soon it came back, followed by a second right on its tail.  The two zipped back and forth a bit before one of them returned to the breathing hole.  It stuck its nose up through the tiny hole, and this time I was ready - I knew where to aim my camera.

I couldn't see anything, but I was pretty sure I had the right spot, so while I heard breathing and cracking ice, I just kept taking pictures; it wasn't until I got home and blew them up that I found the little critter.

Look in the circle.

There he is.

It was panting hard, like a swimmer that had just come up from a long dive and was restoring the oxygen level in its blood in preparation for another.  In a minute it was gone again, zipping away under the ice.  I didn't move.  Another minute or two - both otters came back.  This time one was on my left at a different hole, the other back on my right.  The one on the right decided it wanted a bigger hole and I heard the ice break as it pushed its nose further up through the ice, enough to expose its whiskers.

It pushed up yet further, opening its mouth, perhaps to suck in more air.

Otters have tongues!

Finally, it opened wide and showed off its fish-chomping teeth.

When I first heard the breathing, before I located the hole, I took a couple of videos.  In this first video you can hear a couple of breaths while I was trying to find the source.

In the second video you hear water splashing from the otter to my left.

Two otter reports in two weeks - this one was a lot more enjoyable than last week's.  There I was, standing four feet away from a river otter, close enough to hear it breathing - does it get any better than that?  And now, having woken up this morning to a world of white, I'll be on the hunt for otter slides as they toboggan on their bellies down onto the lake!

Winter at Wicwas.