Is Otter An Opera Lover?

Tue., Jan. 18, 2000

By Susan English susane@spokesman.com

A report from the field: One New Year’s Eve highlight for Bruce Plewman was watching a river otter play in the snow on the floating stage near the Spokane Opera House.

Plewman and a group of nine others were walking along the Spokane River in Riverfront Park that night and spotted the otter. “We spent several minutes watching it and then continued on our trek. It’s an unusual sight in downtown Spokane,” Plewman says.

* Mark your calendars: The annual Upper Skagit Bald Eagle Festival will be in Concrete, Wash., Feb. 5-6. A brochure listing speakers, tours, arts events and local history lectures is available from the Upper Skagit Bald Eagle Festival Committee, P.O. Box 571, Concrete, WA 98237; by calling (360) 853-7009; or on the Web at www.skagiteagle.org.

* The third annual Sandhill Crane Festival will be March 25-26 in Othello, Wash. The event includes guided tours to view thousands of migrating sandhill cranes. For a list of events and speakers, contact the Greater Othello Chamber of Commerce, Sandhill Crane Festival, 33 East Larch, Othello, WA 99344, call (800) 684-2556 or visit the Web site www.cbas.org/festival/festival—frame.ht m.

* For other birding events and information about birdwatching in the West, check out the online magazine, Western Birder and Naturalist, at www.westernbird.com.

* Keep your camera handy: Kudos to Bob Griffith of Veradale, Wash., whose photo of a western bluebird, taken near Mount Spokane, was used in the Reader’s Gallery section of the February Birder’s World magazine.

* More from the squirrel-feeding front: Eugene Young built a squirrel feeder to lure the furry rodents away from his birdfeeders. It works, he says.

“The squirrels tip a can with a lid and it rings a bell in the house. Then I go out and sit on the steps and they come and eat close to me,” Young says. He’s had eight squirrels using the feeder, “five tame enough to eat from my hand.”

* Backyard journal: The resident porcupines gnaw away nightly on the block of deer food. The deer, though, prefer the road salt and sunflower seeds in the birdfeeders. Chittering chickadees and juncos don’t seem to mind sharing.

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