A Thousand Words

No, I’m not renouncing prose, but I’m in a less-than-literary mood at the moment, so I thought I’d share a few images that either don’t need narrative or inspire you to imagine your own.

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

Your Crimes Are UnOtterable

Shameful,



shocking,

and disgraceful.

Now be off with you.

Off!

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

The Jail-Break goes Bust

“It would have all worked out, too… I knew the layout, I knew our way to the creek, I knew an osprey who would be willing to cut us a deal on some new identities… It was all gonna go nice and smooth… But you—you!
“I told you not to make the gun out of a fish, Mavis. I told you they’d smell it half a mile away. Didn’t I? Didn’t I?”

“You did, Suzie.”

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

Not That One, the Otter One

In addition to the zoo’s small-clawed otters, there are also (just as of a few weeks ago) a couple of river otters in a little enclosure behind the Small Mammal House, in the cage where the king vulture used to be (it’s been moved to the next cage over). It’s difficult to get pictures of these guys, what with the fencing around their enclosure, and I’m glad the exhibit space is only temporary, since 1. It seems a little small for the otters and 2. In that confined space, so close to visitors, the smell of their food (or them) is quite strong…it’s sort of an oily fish-going-bad smell, and it kind of offsets the animals’ charm.


It’s a different sort of charm than that of the small-clawed otters in any case; these guys are bigger, with deep-set eyes that give them, to my mind, a somewhat cynical expression. Also, they tend to make explosive “pufffffsssshhh” noises as they snort out air—entertaining but also suggestive of disapproval. I’d say they seem like the darkly skeptical older cousins of the sunny, easily distracted small-clawed otters.


Although I know that the small-clawed otters hail from Asia and the river otters are North American, the latter project a pleasant but slightly glowering Tartar-ish sensibility. To me, that is. I wouldn’t be surprised to stop by one day and find them reading some Dostoyevsky or a biography of Attila the Hun.

[Does this otter secretly think
of me as Prince Myshkin?]