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vireo and otter



On Saturday, 3/29, I heard and saw my first Blue-headed Vireo of the
spring. It was in my yard. 
Earlier, though, I saw something that just blew me away. My neighbor
called me at 7 a.m. to say he thought he was watching a river otter in
his pond. I went over with binoculars and sneaked up for a look. Otter
it was, sitting on a branch of a big hickory that fell over into the
pond last summer. For the hour that I watched the otter, it alternated
between munching on a fish head and swimming around the perimeter of the
pond. You could track its path underwater by bubbles on the surface.
Sometimes it swam on top. Twice it raised itself up in the water to look
at me. Much later it left, and it hasn't been seen since.
This is the first river otter ever seen in our neighborhood -- amd it's
the first one I've seen in North Carolina. Near my neighbor's pond is a
nice, rocky creek, a feeder stream for New Hope Creek, which does have
otters. Must be a lot of them out there, if one found its way so far
upstream to us. A pair of Wood Ducks was on the pond part of the time,
and they kept a careful distance from the sleek otter, which looked like
a real eating machine. Big jaws crunching up the last of the fish head.

Ginger Travis
Orange Co., N.C.