NatureMan

The River Otter

Nature’s most playful creature
… and …
One of Nature’s best swimmers

The River Otter is a mammal. It is technically a member of the weasel family. Unlike its fellow weasels though, the otter has webbed hind feet and spends much of its time in, on or under the water.

Imagine that you are a young river otter. How would you spend your day?

Well, you do have to eat to stay strong and healthy. As an otter, you are a powerful and graceful swimmer. This helps you to catch your main food: small fish. You also love to eat clams and crayfish. Frogs are also on your daily menu.

How do you catch all these creatures? By swimming and chasing them in the water. The webbing between the toes of your hind feet help you to swim very well. Your webbed feet act like a scuba diver’s or snorkeler’s flippers. Your flippers and your thick strong tail propel you swiftly through the water.

As an otter, you hunt for food, usually next to, or in or under the surface of the water. You do this even in winter, finding holes in the ice, diving down into the chilly water below, and coming back up again with your dinner.
You eat your catch after you return to the surface, where you are able to breathe again. Sometimes you eat your catch lying on your back while still in the water. Or you can eat it after climbing back up onto the ice (in winter) or onto shore on nearby land (in spring, summer and fall).

But that’s not all that you do. Once you’ve eaten its play time! Otters are well known for being playful, and you are no exception. You love to slide down creek banks. You slide on mud in the summer, down into the open waters, with a big splash. Or down the snowbanks onto the frozen creek in the winter, probably singing otter talk for “Wheeeeeeeeeee!!!!!” all the way down the snowbank and across the ice, doing “donuts” until you come to a stop.

Lucky otter that you are, you can swim and play all year long, even in the cold winter months, because you have a luxurious fur coat that is essentially waterproof. But you have to keep it that way.

So, after eating and playtime comes grooming time. You naturally know that you have to take care of your shiny sleek short dark brown fur coat so that it stays waterproof and keeps you warm and dry. To do that you carefully lick your fur dry and clean with your tongue after every series of dives. Kind of like what a cat does every day to keep itself clean and looking nice. This takes time but it is important for you to do every day.

NatureMan has a story for all of you otters out there.

One time, in the month of October, after a big early snowfall, while he was out in the boreal forest up in Northern Ontario, not far from where NatureMan was born and raised, NatureMan was treated to an amazing display: the sights and sounds of a family of 7 otters playing in the snow, sliding down the banks into a nearby stream. They made all sorts of happy sounds, as they kept climbing back up and sliding back down, over and over again. They had so much fun! The show went on for two hours! NatureMan had as much fun watching as the otters did playing.

NatureMan was inspired to write this story by one of his beautiful granddaughters. Her name, fittingly, is River.

The pine marten is a member of the weasel family. He lives in the boreal forest of Northern Ontario. He can usually be found in evergreen trees.

The pine marten is a small carnivore, a meat eater. Today, on a lovely summer day, a male pine marten is just waking up. He is hoping to find a red pine squirrel or, better yet, a spruce grouse, for breakfast.
He sits in a tall jack pine tree, planning his search. His short reddish brown fur glistens in the early morning sun.
The wind is gentle. It carries a familiar scent that the marten recognizes: his favourite meal. He sees it! A spruce grouse roosted in a nearby black spruce tree is just waking up.
The marten looks around carefully to ensure that there are no predators nearby that might be after him. His short but sharp claws cling tightly to the branch as he starts to move forward. His bushy tail helps him to keep his balance.
His eyes and his nose tell him that breakfast is about to be served. He starts to get excited. Then he begins to creep forward along the branch, slowly and carefully, so as not to alert the grouse to his presence.
The marten moves stealthily from branch to branch, tree to tree, making no sound whatsoever. He has great balance, so manouvering through the trees comes as second nature to him. His pointed face is concentrating on his target. His ears are cupped forward.
Finally, the pine marten is so close to the grouse that he can almost taste it. He tenses up his hind legs for the assault. He leaps forward in one smooth elegant motion and strikes his target like a bolt of lightning. After a brief struggle, the grouse is his!
Happily, the marten consumes some of the grouse, then buries the rest in a carefully chosen spot, where he can find it for his next meal.
The satisfied marten will spend the rest of the day sunning himself, and possibly looking for a mate. He is usually solitary, but when he finds a friendly female they will mate. She will have anywhere from one to five little ones in the spring. Together they will raise their young in the hollow of a tree.

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