Wilburt the otter

The other night, coming home from bear hunting at humpy creek, I ran into the most friendly otter.  As many of you know, the otter is my most favorite animal, and when I first got here, I was really fascinated with them.  Sea otters are the most prevalent here, though I have seen a few river otters too in certain places. Anyway, I tried and tried to get some good photos of otters.  Eventually, I learned that if you follow or chase them, they will just elude you one way or another.  Then I learned that if you lay back and watch the path they are on, then get in their path, they will sometimes swim by you fairly close.  As the summer wore on, I quit trying to photograph them, and just enjoyed them as I drove by - and basically just let them be.

The sun was setting this evening, and reflecting beautifully off of the calm water.  Something made me try again, and I was pleasantly surprised to find the most cooperative sea otter of all time.  He was diving down to about ten feet, picking up some clams - or whatever he was eating, lying them on his chest, cracking them open and eating them.  He was so into his eating that he was oblivious to what we were doing. It seemed like that anyway...

Wilburt would take a few bites, then roll over, scratch and clean himself, then take a few more bites.  Otters are always twisting and turning - gracefully gliding through the water, always paddling their feet and tail, always on the move...

He was literally right over the side of my boat. I took these photos with my camera phone.

I like the otter obviously - I took dozens of shots of him, but I also like the way the water looks. I was in front of a glacial spit - where the clear water from the glaciers and the mountain snow melt rushes down and mixes with the shallow tidal flats and silt that is there.  It's kind of a creamy, blue/green mix of saltwater - with reflections of clouds and the last sunlight of the day mixing with the ripples that play off the otters movements.

I took movies of Wilburt - I'll have to load them to YouTube and post a link here so you can see and hear for yourself.  He was so close, you could hear him crunching on his food.

He seemed so happy with his little flippers going - I could almost see him smiling as he made contented little grunts - while chomping away on his clam.

By this time, I had taken three video sequences, and 50-75 photos with my waterproof point and shoot camera, and my camera phone.

I had been following Wilburt around in the boat for about 45 minutes.  He would dive for another clam, and then I would wait for him to resurface - then drive over to where he was swimming and parallel him while taking pictures - kicking my boat in and out of gear to keep the right pace.  But eventually, Wilburt got tired of me following him.  He stayed down longer. He came up farther away. He changed directions.  And, my boat partner, who was hungry and not as into otters as I, had had enough - so I said goodbye to my favorite otter and we headed across the bay to the harbor.