One Fine Morning in my Backyard Blind | Tara Tanaka

"The water has been low in our cypress swamp for months now, but is holding unusually stable. The water line is now a few hundred feet farther from the house than normal, and the water level is ideal for wading birds, but still deep enough to float an otter. A few weeks ago, I put a photo blind right on the edge of water, close to ‘gator island’ where I’d seen the otter marking a scent post a couple of weeks before. On a 33-degree Florida morning I set up in the blind before sunrise and waited to see what would appear. It was a spectacular winter morning. The order of the video is the order that that nature’s play unfolded before me – almost five hours condensed into about four minutes.
Before the fog had lifted, the otter arrived at gator island to freshen up his scent post, and as quickly as he’d appeared, he was gone. As the morning went on, I saw him many times, and it was almost always our “winter” Great Blue Heron that would alert me to his location. I’ve seen one species of bird follow another species to take advantage of prey that is flushed by the feeding of the bird being followed, but this otter is the first non-bird I remember seeing that birds follow to look for flushed prey. We have a number of birds – exactly one of each species – that stay here in the winter: a Great Egret, Great Blue Heron, Little Blue Heron and an Anhinga. Our winter Little Blue Heron seemed really excited to have a couple of Wood Storks back in the swamp – the first ones in months – and he followed them closely. The fuzzier-headed Stork was likely fledged here last year, and the older one, probably 2 or 3 years old, may have also fledged from our swamp in the last few years. We haven’t had Canada Geese in months, and on this morning three separate groups landed in the water not far from me, and I think that their “decoy effect” was probably responsible for the comfort of the other birds, especially during hunting season. Only one pair of our regular Wood Ducks was visible.
The first female Great Blue Heron of the season arrived on this morning and landed in a cypress near me, and our winter Great Blue landed below her and examined the new arrival from a distance.
Late in the morning the otter appeared again in what’s left of a shallow sink hole, and as he looked for prey he suddenly stepped on the gas and zoomed around almost faster than the Great Blue and I could follow him. Numerous times the otter would almost run into the Great Blue and he would fly at the last second to keep from being hit.
I’ve spent three more mornings in the blind since this day, and have hardly seen a thing, but nesting season is just around the corner." ~ Tara Tanaka