I’ve mentioned before that RPRT (right place, right time), TOT (time on task) and LOL (lots of luck) can make your outings in nature rewarding.

Just last week I picked what I thought would be a good day of birding and headed out early. I was hoping to find a few new ducks for the year so I headed to a local waterway (I’ll let it unnamed for now, explain later) and in a minute I saw some common mergansers and gadwalls.

Great, two new birds for the 2026 bird list. But as I was ready to start the pickup, an unusual movement in the water caught my attention. I grabbed the camera, and surprise! It was a river otter.

Wow, a sunny day, relatively close to me, and I have the camera. I thought, I should be able to get some good pictures. Well, this otter was busy trying to catch its breakfast. It would surface for 10 or 15 seconds, but not at the same location from where it submerged. I’d then see it surface again, and try to get it in focus, and darn, it slid below the surface again.

The bonus for me though, even when I didn’t get many quality pics, is that I was able to enjoy watching it for nearly 20 minutes. It eventually was successful, but swam directly away from me to the nearest shore, where with my binoculars, I identified its prey as a sunfish.

It hurried into the brushy shoreline to eat. I kept my camera trained on the spot where it disappeared, waiting to get a photo or two when it returned. Of course, it picked a different spot to exit the brush. I had a great show today without buying a ticket.

In the remainder of this column, I’ll give some life history, diet and history of the river otter and its presence here in Pennsylvania and the Times News area.

In researching more info on the river otter, I found contradicting information. One source claimed that by the early 1900s the otter was completely extirpated from the state. Only one other source contradicted that by stating the Pocono area still held a small population.

Extensive trapping, and then water pollution of major rivers where they lived, led to their near disappearance. Today, they are even found in waterways in the Philadelphia area. I saw my first otter in the Lehigh Canal about 40 years ago, so I can confirm that this region still harbored some. I usually have a sighting of one almost every year in our region. I have seen then most often in coves of Beltzville Dam, the Lehigh Canal, Lizard Creek, the Lehigh River and the Parryville Dam.

Females will shortly, or already are, preparing a denning area. They prefer slower moving bodies of water and often choose to modify a muskrat den, often with an underwater entrance. Young will be born from February to early April. The female will raise the young by herself, only interacting with the male the next December or January to mate. If you see a group of otters using a mud slide or “playing” together, it would be the young or a mom and her young.

Their chief foods are usually fish, minnows, frogs, snakes and even some water plants. I hope in your outdoor travels you get to see one. And, even better, get to watch their activity for a while. So, get out there.

Test Your Outdoor Knowledge: A young river otter is called a: A. kit; B. pup; C. cub; D. spar.

Last Week’s Trivia Answer: Red foxes will be mating shortly, with the female locating a den in about eight weeks or so. Bear cubs have already been born and are being nursed by the sow.

Email Barry Reed at breed71@gmail.com