Spring: Muskrats in Wascana Creek

Muskrat: Wascana Creek, Regina © SB

Regina, Saskatchewan: A pair of muskrats swim in Wascana Creek near the city centre. They surface around a cluster of branches and sticks that perhaps hide the entrance to their den, burrowed into the bank.

One muskrat is cinnamon in tone, with the hint of a bandit mask beside the eyes. (Let's call her the female.) Her fur seems dry and fluffy as she floats along. Above the water, her tail... that thick bullwhip tail.

Muskrat: Crossing the creek.  © SB  

The other muskrat is darker. Sleek and very wet. He crosses the stream to our side and swims along the shore, heading away from us. I run back to get in front, to get this muskrat's picture.

Muskrat Love.

Captain and Tennille sang that, though my guess is most of us old enough to remember, remember only the odd title. Not the even odder words: Muskrat Suzie, Muskrat Sam, Do the jitterbug in Muskrat Land...  

Why the jitterbug? Why not the crawl? Or the sleek muskrat slide across the creek?

Sticks and branches: The muskrat den? 
She is swimming in front.  © SB  

The tail, the tail -- the muskrat's scaly tail.  © SB   

Meet the eyes of the wild things...
They, too, have a place on this earth. 

What are these?  .A pair of muskrats in Wascana Creek.     

Location: Near Kiwanis Park, east of the Elphinstone Bridge (pix taken from north/east side of creek), Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.   
Photo dates: March 18, 2012. 

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