Hodges Village Dam: Oxford, MA (2/3)

After having some lunch, my parents and I headed over to Hodges Village Dam for a hike before the sun went down. It was getting cooler so most of the birds had already turned in for the night. But, during our return trip we headed up onto the dike. There we found some incredible tracks... a River Otter slide. You could see where the animal came out of the river and scampered up the dike. At the top of the dike he did a belly slide over the edge. The slide itself was so detailed that you could see traces that I would guess were made by the otter's claws.

Wherever the snow wasn't deep enough to completely bury the rocks, the otter ran just far enough to start sliding again. He went down the entire slope like this. You can see it all in this picture.

I don't think that its unreasonable to say that otters really love to do this. This guy certainly went out of his way for a quick thrill.