While hiking around on my property along the
Upper Mattaponi RIver near Beulahville in King
William County on Tuesday Dec 20 I heard a large
flock of rusty blackbirds raising a ruckus in the
flooded floodplain forest around the oxbow pond.
I went down to watch them. There were 550 of
them walking on the ice, drinking and bathing in
shallow-water holes in the ice around the bases
of bushes, and possibly feeding on insects there
too. Then I was attracted by the a slight sound
of ice cracking. I looked towards the sound and
saw an otter poking his head up through a hole
his head had poked in the ice, a sunfish in his
mouth. Over the next 15 minutes I saw three
otters nuzzling each other's faces, eating
sunfishes (3), rubbing chin on a tree trunk
(probably scent-marking), poking head up through
the ice, and looking very cute.
PS The Pocket still had lots of coots,
pied-billed grebes, swans, and ducks.
ALl the best
Fred
Frederick D. Atwood fredatwood@xxxxxxxxx
Flint Hill School, 10409 Academic Dr, Oakton, VA 22124
703-242-1675
http://www.agpix.com/fredatwood
http://www.flinthill.org
http://tea.armadaproject.org/tea_atwoodfrontpage.html
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