The Otters are Here!

Following Angie Berchielli’s wonderful presentation on river otters at our recent Volunteer Recognition event, board member Miles Garfinkel, who frequently walks here, offered the following.

A walk at Five Rivers always brings discoveries that surprise, teach, and remain in your consciousness forever. These experiences can be subtle, such as watching milkweed seeds defy gravity and fly across the meadow. A nature walk can also be startling, but welcome, when honking geese erupt from one of the ponds.

Recently there have been sightings of two secretive large mammals. One has left evidence of fish bones on the far eastern dam of Beaver pond and in winter has left holes in the ice that look as if someone has thrown a large rock. The unusual sightings have been of the river otter.

This mammal has a streamlined body up to thirty pounds and is the largest member of the weasel family in our area. It is a semi-aquatic carnivore with valves in its nostrils and ears to keep out water as its hunts fish, crayfish, frogs, and turtles. River otters can den in other animals’ previous homes in river banks and may use underwater entrances similar to beaver. Otters are admired for their habit of playing by sliding down snowy areas into streams and leaving long slide tracks. Their revised scientific name is Lontra canadensis.

Felis rufus has also been seen at Five Rivers and on Meads Lane to the east. Who is Felis rufus? A ghostly silhouette of a large bobcat with a bobbed tail and pointy ear tufts means mice, squirrels, rabbits, birds, reptiles and porcupines are being hunted in forests, marshes, or farmland. Bobcats can be many shades of brown weighing from nine to thirty pounds and be up to 40 inches long. They shelter in dens, hollow trees, or rock crevices from which they may pounce on prey.

The more time you spend at Five Rivers the more you will see. Can Alces alces be next? (The moose.)