Top Photo: River otter latrine.

Our roughly three acre wetland drains into a small creek which connects with Ellerbee Creek. Ellerbee eventually flows into the Eno River and from there Falls Lake, all part of the Neuse River watershed. These creeks, rivers and lake are the trails, roadways and highways in which river otters and other aquatic animals move across the countryside. I occasionally see one or two otters in our wetland, but their visits are usually marked only by what they leave behind, scat.

Otter scat is laced with shell fragments, fish scales and other hard, non-digestible objects that pass through the animal’s digestive system from the fish, frogs, crayfish, mussels and other aquatic animals eaten by the large, like-wise aquatic, mustelid (weasel). There’s often several days worth of scat in one location (called an otter latrine) whenever they visit. This is sometimes the only proof an otter was here.

The rock pictured here is one such latrine. It’s immediately next to our floating walkway and easily seen by anyone walking by. An otter or two were definitely on the scene!

A damselfly, a male fragile forktail, alighted within a few feet of the otter latrine making for a convenient photo opportunity. The tiny male fragile forktails have green markings on their thorax. Look for the dorsal green markings shaped like an exclamation point (!), unique to fragile forktails.

Our resident yellow-bellied sliders, and other aquatic turtles, enjoy stretching out on our new floating basking platforms.

Seen on the floating walkway, a once rare but now common green anole draws attention to itself by displaying its dewlap.

Keep an eye out for a family of rapidly growing Canada geese, that is, the five goslings are growing bigger every day. They can be seen randomly throughout the north side of the museum’s campus.

Get out and have a look around, you never know what you’ll see!

Ranger Greg