The drama took place in an early morning light that was too low for pictures of the action: a sub-adult eagle harassed an otter.
The first thing I saw was the Bald Eagle prominently perched atop a piling. It looked as if it were perhaps only a year-and-a-half old. Then I followed its gaze and saw a River Otter playing on the snow on a dock. It slid across the snow, rolled over, and generally frolicked. It was a female, undoubtedly the same one that has visited before.
Abruptly the eagle took to the air and seemed to hover about three meters above the otter. The otter vanished into the Lake, its play cut short. The eagle returned to the piling and the otter merely swam to an adjacent dock, and took up its play again. Anon, the eagle flew away, and the otter went on with life.
What was that eagle thinking? The otter didn’t have a fish, so the eagle wasn’t trying to intimidate it into dropping one (as it does with ospreys); no, it was after the otter, itself. Certainly it could have injured the otter, but going after an otter would not be the same as chasing a duck—the otter outweighs the eagle and is rather well armed. The eagle might not have survived the encounter. Was this eagle just too callow to be able to calculate the odds of success?
The five pictures below were take of the two players in the drama as the morning’s light improved.
The eagle sits atop a piling still watching the otter play, now on a slightly more distant dock.
The otter frolics despite the eagle’s presence.
The eagle finally gave up and flew off.
The otter looks around.
and finally swims away.
I’m curious as to how you can tell it’s a female? Maybe you got a better look than me? Is there a way other than a clear view of genitals? Lactating females should be obvious but…Anyway, I love the otters and their playfulness I did get some awesome pictures (for me) of one on a dock in Lardeau, I’m sure it was just posing for me.
Lorna, I wondered if someone would ask me how it was I identified the sex of this visitor. After all from a distance, otters don’t show obvious sexual differences. However, this lassie would not go down in the annals of modesty—I just chose to not show the pictures of her genitals.