{"id":37691,"date":"2024-10-16T05:45:36","date_gmt":"2024-10-16T09:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=37691"},"modified":"2024-10-15T07:46:48","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T11:46:48","slug":"just-once-part-42","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2024\/10\/just-once-part-42\/","title":{"rendered":"Just once, part 42"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a while since we&#8217;ve had a mammal, hasn&#8217;t it? That&#8217;s because I have very few candidate mammals in the <em>Just Once<\/em> list, and too few mammals overall, really. But since the posts have been lean, we&#8217;ll have a video for this one.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding: 60% 0 0 0; position: relative;\"><iframe style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" title=\"Otter pups at NC Aquarium\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/743842724?h=170f96a13e&amp;badge=0&amp;autopause=0&amp;player_id=0&amp;app_id=58479\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/api\/player.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Those are Asian small-clawed otters (<em>Aonyx cinereus<\/em>,) and were found at the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher, a new brood that had hatched there two years back. They also represent the only species featured so far to have &#8220;Asian&#8221; in the name &#8211; a little surprising to me, but okay. <\/p>\n<p>On our visit to Goose Creek State Park last year, a ranger alerted us to the presence of otters early that morning, though we were there in late morning and saw no signs of them<strong>;<\/strong> these would have been North American river otters instead, and I <em>do<\/em> have a handful of frames of those, from the wild even, but am always happy to have more\/closer\/better because that&#8217;s what nature photographers do &#8211; I still take photos of osprey and great blue herons even though I have <em>thousands<\/em> of frames of those. When we revisited the park a couple weeks back I thought we had found otter tracks, but now comparing the sizes, I&#8217;m fairly certain we&#8217;d found something else instead. Still, if they&#8217;re there, I&#8217;ll be after them &#8211; the biggest issue is that I can&#8217;t get very early access to the park unless I camp there overnight, and I hate camping.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But Al,&#8221; you interject snarkily, &#8220;can&#8217;t you endure a little hardship if it&#8217;s for <em>the cause<\/em>? Are you sure you&#8217;re a <em>real<\/em> nature photographer&#8221; Though I admit I don&#8217;t know the definition of a <em>real<\/em> nature photographer but I suspect it involves garnering more income than this from it, so no, I&#8217;m probably not &#8211; which gives me a handy excuse. But it&#8217;s true that, if I have enough evidence that it won&#8217;t be wasted effort, I may set up a tent overnight, knowing full well that I won&#8217;t sleep worth a shit and will be tired and stiff as hell when I&#8217;m chasing pics. And given your comment, I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;ll be buying a print or five when I do, <em>right<\/em>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a while since we&#8217;ve had a mammal, hasn&#8217;t it? That&#8217;s because I have very few candidate mammals in the Just Once list, and too few mammals overall, really. But since the posts have been lean, we&#8217;ll have a video for this one. Those are Asian small-clawed otters (Aonyx cinereus,) and were found at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3,3809],"tags":[6888,6887,5157,7843],"class_list":["post-37691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-photo","category-video","tag-aonyx-cinereus","tag-asian-small-clawed-otter","tag-nc-aquarium-at-fort-fisher","tag-thats-right-put-the-reader-on-the-defensive-for-no-good-reason"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}