Red Letter Day!

As some of you have already seen on Facebook, today was a HUGE day for me on the wildlife scene. I was standing at the window in the kitchen when my eye was suddenly caught by a wave in the creek where it makes the ninety degree turn to head away from our house. "Wave?" I thought... huh. What would make that happen? So I kept watching and then next thing I saw was a sleek dark thing that surfaced and then dove - like a mini-porpoise or some such thing. What the heck???!! And then it climbed out of the creek onto a big rock, with a fish in its mouth. AN OTTER! A river otter - or more formally: North American river otter. Well I never!!!!! And I truly have never seen one in the wild. I may have seen one in a zoo. I've seen sea otters in California. But only photos of river otters. It sat there and ate its fish - a surprisingly large fish (I've only ever seen tiny fishes in that creek!) - for quite some time, while I happily took photos of it. Eventually it got back in the water and swam off downstream.

Day made! Talk about being in the right place at the right time...

A better look at the fish in the extra.