Wildlife tour and assessment

MONITOR: 1 hour: 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM

Walkabout with observations of wildlife: River otters, elk sign and an odd bird.

Hiking wildlife tour of Clearwater Creek Property: down West Ridge to the creek, photo and video at the mouth of the creek, up to the SW corner and then up the south side to the end of the road near the high point at the SE corner. Noticed one, maybe two river otter in the flood-tide swollen base of Clearwater Creek in my salmon-viewing area – lots of splashing around and some irritated chattering noises for a few minutes and then silence – they vanished.  Possibly a salmon involved with the splashing, but not confirmed like the otter. Lots of elk scat throughout the trail system, much of it recent (within the week), but no elk sighting. One murrelet-type bird zipped out towards the water from the big trees in the SE corner, with a seabird-like repeated, high-pitched, single-note call. On the way in (at the gate) and on the way out (by the tidal slough south of CC), a large brown owl was flying around – too dark to see any other identifying features.

River Otter popping up at the edge of Clearwater Creek.

Very hard to see, but a river otter is staring at me from the water’s edge, a tiny gray figure in the middle of the photo just to the left of the stump. It was furiously splashing around in the tide-swollen creek mouth just moments earlier. Perhaps the salmon are running, but none were evident on this visit.

River Otter swimming at the mouth of Clearwater Creek.

Another poor quality photo off the river otter You can see its wake in the middle of the photo and (barely) see his dark form gliding underwater, heading to the lower left-hand corner.

Mouth of Clearwater Creek at tidewater, with trees in and across the creek.

I cleared a path along the edge of the creek (running up through the middle of the photo) for salmon and wildlife viewing, but left the fallen trees and branches in place within the creek itself. I noticed the otters using them for cover when I startled them, so hopefully it will encourage aquatic wildlife to hang out here.