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otterfamilyThis year so far, there have been two resident males here. I saw two males together yesterday evening, so it couldn't have been either of them who drowned. This doesn't eliminate the possibility that the dead otter was a newcomer that I never knew about. This is actually the time of year when most newcomers show up. So I can't give up on the possibility that Scoots is still OK and just not here right now. But seeing the males did make it seem more probable that Scoots was, in fact, the otter that drowned.
Watching the males last evening, I was troubled by the fact that I could not tell exactly who they were. I don't really recognize either of them. The one male is old enough to be Complainer (Scoots's 10-year-old younger brother), but Complainer vanished last year and I'd come to the conclusion that he was gone for good. I've never had a male go missing for that length of time and come back again, which is why I have my doubts that this old male is actually Complainer.
I was thinking that the other otter I saw might be Slick (Scoots's son), but this younger male looked very young indeed. He was small enough and his face was juvenile-looking enough for him to be a yearling. Slick would be 4 years old now, and he had grown to become a very large otter, so I don't think the younger male last evening was him. (Slick's disappearance has worried me, too. I haven't had a confirmed sighting of him in over 2 months.)
So I now find myself in the disconcerting position of not knowing just who is who here. There have never been so few otters at Trinidad Bay, and I haven't known so little about the otters I'm watching since I first started observing them here 24 summers ago...
Watching the males last evening, I was troubled by the fact that I could not tell exactly who they were. I don't really recognize either of them. The one male is old enough to be Complainer (Scoots's 10-year-old younger brother), but Complainer vanished last year and I'd come to the conclusion that he was gone for good. I've never had a male go missing for that length of time and come back again, which is why I have my doubts that this old male is actually Complainer.
I was thinking that the other otter I saw might be Slick (Scoots's son), but this younger male looked very young indeed. He was small enough and his face was juvenile-looking enough for him to be a yearling. Slick would be 4 years old now, and he had grown to become a very large otter, so I don't think the younger male last evening was him. (Slick's disappearance has worried me, too. I haven't had a confirmed sighting of him in over 2 months.)
So I now find myself in the disconcerting position of not knowing just who is who here. There have never been so few otters at Trinidad Bay, and I haven't known so little about the otters I'm watching since I first started observing them here 24 summers ago...
