WILDLIFE
I saw coyote tracks near the outhouse, and when I opened the door I jumped back. There was a coyote curled up on the floor.
It
snarled and laid its ears back. The door stayed open
and I stood looking at it. It bared its fangs but
stayed lying down. I eventually backed off and ran up
to the shack and shouted to Hap to come down and see the coyote.
Hap came out immediately but by the time we got down to the
outhouse the animal was gone.
“That was weird,”
I exclaimed. “I wonder if it was sick?”
“I don’t know – I don’t see any blood or anything,” Hap replied.
We
had seen wolf tracks several times on our various outings but we had never
seen coyote tracks, at least not that I knew of. In
loose snow coyote tracks could be mistaken for wolf tracks but the number
of coyotes in the area was low.
The
breakfast did us some good and it was as if food in our bellies and seeing
the coyote made us totally forget our altercation.
“Yesterday before you arrived I saw a dark object out on the lake.
I think it was a head of something poking up through the snow,”
Hap related.
“Let’s go see what it was,” I said with excitement.
We put on our parkas, strapped the snowshoes on and headed down to the lake. After some walking back and forth, Hap found the hole. I rushed over; sure enough, there was a hole maybe twenty centimetres in diameter with muddy tracks around it.
“It
must be an otter,” I exclaimed, “see the five toes and the indication
of webbing?”
The tracks did not lead away from the hole. We walked over to the nearest shore and explored, hoping to see more tracks but our search was in vain. We had just started for the hole again when we saw a dark head poke up. We stopped instantly and stood still.
The otter looked around and then jumped up onto the surface. It sat with an arched back and held its characteristic fat tail out behind. It appeared so sleek in its wet fur. It sat and ate something but its back was toward us so we could not make out what it was.
After a
couple of minutes it slid into the hole again. We
waited a while but it did not reappear. We walked over
to the spot and figured that the otter had been eating a small fish; there
was a bit of fin left on the snow.
This incident seemed to completely cure us of our bout with cabin fever. We were so excited about the otter – this was the first otter we had seen during the winter. We had come across the telltale signs – a few bounds followed by a glide mark in the snow. Only the otter will come bounding along and then throw itself on its belly and slide along.
During the
summer on canoe trips we had often seen otters. They
might surface near the canoe and almost bark at us. If
there was a muddy bank they are sure to glide down and into the water.
They can do this for many minutes in an apparent game.
We decided to explore the area for the rest of the day and spent another night in the trappers’ shack.
After a lunch
of soup and a bannock we headed back in the woods following the skidoo
trail made by the fellows from the night before. We
came across several snowshoe hare tracks. We followed
the tracks and suddenly came into a relatively large opening where the
snow was completely tramped down.
“Hey, this is a stomping ground,” I exclaimed.
In writings by both Grey Owl and Ernest Thompson Seton, I had read about snowshoe hare stomping grounds. On some nights several hares will come together on a clear moon-lit night and “dance.” The result is a large area several meters in diameter where the snow has been completely trampled down by the hares “dancing” under the moon.
The moon would be nearly full so we decided to come back later in the evening. We were fascinated by the prospect of seeing hares dancing and came back at night guided by moonlight and moving as quietly as we could. We envisioned seeing lots of hares hopping around in a magical dance. Although we waited and waited, no hares showed up.
Maybe this dance was only for hares to experience.