There was an otter in my yard today!!!

So I looked out the fron door today and saw something bounding across the field. It took a minute to register. It was an otter…almost three feet long. It came up in the yard and looked around, then it went back into the swamp. I had not seen one in many years and it was a few hundred feet from the edge of the swamp. I wonder what it was doing.

It was almost as exciting as the alligator snapper that crawled up into the field to lay eggs last year. It was about a twenty pound turtle. I had never seen one that big.

I wonder what will show up in the yard next. :confused:

Did it break open a clam on its tummy?

That would be a sea otter. This was a river otter.

Then did it break open TWO clams on its tummy?

Maybe you “otter” get him a welcome basket. You know, some sticks . . . a little raw fish . . . a Yankee Candle . . .

Cool.
I can beat that, though.
I saw one run across a guy’s driveway on Kavanaugh in Little Rock, Arkansas, at least three miles from the Arkansas River. I thought it more likely that he had escaped from the zoo, which is closer than the river. He had no clams or otter chow, broken or otherwise. :slight_smile:

I thought this thread was going to be about something otter than what it is.

Pfft. That’s nothing. I’ve had an otter in my bed.

Hm?

Whaddaya mean, “not that kind of otter”?

Oh. :o

That tops my plain old woodchuck and skunk backyard sightings. As a New Yorker turned suburbanite I still think they’re cool though.

I hope it’s a she and she comes back with itty bitty baby otters. That would really be adorable.

Not to disparage you, LavenderBlue, but woodchuck and skunk (and racoon, and in the Northeast, whitetail deer) sighting are strictly amateur stuff. They’re all suburbanites in any area with dense enough housing. Otters are a little trickier.

So, has the Allied Atheist Alliance taken over the Great Salkehatchie Swamp?

Most likely a tern. Because one good tern deserves an otter.

Yes . . . Sighting them is strictly amateur stuff . . . :smiley:

Aww, the most I’ve seen is an overweight marmot perched outside the Pizza Hut. Although, not initially knowing what it was, I thought it was a gigantic gopher.

I’m going to go with brown snakes, foxes, kangaroos and a stray cat. I’ve seen them all in my yard at some point but not at the same time.

This is the worst thing I’ve read in years. Thank you.

offers a snappy salute

Otters rule. Otter brings his injured partner to hospital. Now that’s touching.

I am so jealous. I would looooooovvvve to have otters living close enough to me to grace my yard. Dangit. Oh well, at least in spring time I have baby bunnies.

I saw an otter in central PA last year. It had killed a 2’ long snake and was (I presume) hauling this home to feed the family.