Monday, March 22, 2010

What Is This Mystery Creature?

I left you yesterday with a picture of a mystery creature. Today I'm going to reveal the identity of that creature, and the first part of the exciting event that it created. Read on to find out what it is. This will take a story so you can find out just like I did. Let's start from the beginning.

It had been a quiet idea at the nature park, so I wasn't expecting to see much at all. I heard a goose honking down by the dam, so I figured I'd go down there to see if one of them was doing anything at all interesting. When I got down there, I noticed that there were actually four Canada geese and two mallard ducks swimming around together by the opposite shore of the lake.

As I began taking pictures of them, I noticed what looked like a big oddly colored squirrel come trotting along the shore from the left side. I kept thinking it was a very odd looking squirrel, but what else could it be? The geese also noticed this creature, and they were watching it very closely!

The odd little creature began to creep toward the right, trying to seem very nonchalant to the geese, who weren't buying it at all. It hesitated while watching the geese, but then made a run for it past them and off to the right! I had no idea what it was trying to do, but I was now just as interested as the geese were. I wondered if maybe it was planning to attack them, or maybe the ducks.

The oddly colored creature, that I still thought must be a squirrel, slowed down again as it got past the first pair of geese. It seemed to be trying to hide behind the taller grass that happened to be there. The creature was nervously watching the geese, and it was clearly after something, but I just didn't know what yet.

After another second or two the creature noticed the second pair of geese that were also there, and it decided that it had better keep moving up the shoreline. It made a run for it with the geese still intently watching! This all was actually happening in only a matter of a few seconds, so I was not nearly as prepared as I would have liked to be for what happened next.

When this creature, which I still thought was maybe a squirrel, made it past the geese, it quickly moved towards the edge of the water and very smoothly slipped right in! No squirrel would ever do something like this! I now knew this was no squirrel at all. I had only two guesses. It could be an otter, or it could be an animal I researched a few months ago, a mink.

It definitely was too small to be an otter, so that only left one possible identity for this little creature. This creature is a mink! Now you know the identity of this little mink. For those of you that guessed it was a weasel, you are partially correct. A mink is actually a kind of weasel.

But what happened when the mink slid into the water? Did it swim away? What did the geese do? Come back tomorrow to see what happens next. This is going to get very exciting, and I even have video of this event! You won't want to miss this!!!

14 comments:

  1. Thank you for not making me wait days and days for the answer! A mink and an eagle in one day. Very cool.

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  2. Wow..that's awesome! A mink? How wonderful to see it in action!

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  3. Cool! I've never seen a mink out and about.

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  4. Wow, I missed yesterdays post so lucky me didn't have to wait and wonder. So how common are mink in that area?

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  5. I have never heard a mink before. Oh!! It is actually a 貂 in Chinese, then I heard a lot about its story in Chinese folklores.

    Interesting.

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  6. Aha, a mink, a smaller member of the weasel family! Yesterday I guessed river otter, but I now notice the head is too narrow. Nice mystery. Mink are fairly common in these parts but very reclusive. Thanks.

    Bill

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  7. Ho ho! It gets better and better. I can't believe you got a video of a mink! I'll be back for sure. But you knew I would be.

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  8. That's too cool. So lucky that you got to see one.

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  9. I can't wait to see your video Ratty!!!

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  10. Oh so that's what a mink looks like. I read about them quite often (usually portrayed as sociopathic murdering creatures, lol). I thought they'd be bigger and look like rabbits (I don't know where I got that at all). Obviously, we don't have them here in the Philippines. :)

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  11. I thought of a weasel when I saw it yesterday, but then it looked more like a marten or a fisher....are you sure it wasn't one of those instead of a mink?

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  12. Hi everybody! I meant to spend this time visiting all of your sites, but the video is proving very time consuming to edit. Hopefully it will be ready for the upcoming post! I got some even more good video on some unrelated animals today!

    @Ann
    Minks are fairly common around here. I've been reading about them for awhile now.
    -

    @The Retired One
    I'm sure it's a mink. The two you mention aren't around here, but minks are common. You'll see in the video that it fits the description of a mink perfectly. :)

    And to everybody else, thanks for your comments. They are always welcome here!

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  13. A mink?! Wow. I can't wait to see what he was after!

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  14. Ratty, I had never seen a mink in person either. I thought it was a squirrel.

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