What the heck was that I saw the other day?

River otter, sea otter, Indian smooth coated otter, Giant river otter, Brazilian giant otter, southern sea otter. These are the names of otters I found on a web site, while I was trying to find an answer to my question.

The one I saw from the driver's seat of my bus, if it was an otter, was black, had little half-circle ears a bit over an inch in diameter such as in the pictures of otters I found on the web, but had tight, black fur. It also was round, kind of pudgy, and seemed to be looking at me.

"No, I don't want to ride the bus," it may have been saying.

Or not.

The site had 21 photos of otters, all of which had ears that resembled the critter I saw. But none of the ones in the 21 photos were black.

A passenger told me of one he saw in Surry. He described it as about four feet in length, black, and frightening.

"If I had been on foot, I would have turned and run as fast as I could," the passenger said.

A critter I once saw from my bus in Bass Harbor could have been a river otter, according to descriptions told to me and online. It was more of a brown color and smaller than the one I saw the other day.

The one I saw could have been a young otter, since its the season of the year when last spring's babies are now young. But it was black.

Maybe it was a bus otter. I saw it from the bus.

It wasn't what Dolores saw one night early last week.

She said, "What is this outside?"

I didn't know and didn't get up to see. I was busy with a Garrison Keillor novel. When you're involved with a Garrison Keillor novel, you can't just stop reading his cynical nonsense.

"What's it look like?" I asked, flipping the page.

"It's kind of gray," she said, "or maybe whitish. It's hard to tell in just the light from the front porch."

"Could it be a skunk?" she asked.

"No," I replied confidently, as a good armchair naturalist should without putting down a good book to get up and look. "All skunks have a smell."

She closed the door, and we thought about what it might have been until two nights ago.

Two nights ago, she opened the door to let one of the kitties in, our black-and-white tabby, named Maci but whom we often call Holstein for an obvious color-determined reason.

"It's here again," she said.

This time, not having Garrison Keillor in hand, I got up and went to the screen door and looked out.

There was a young skunk, chowing down on the raccoon family's sunflower seeds. It had a split black stripe with white going down the back.

It didn't smell at all. Nor did Maci.

It didn't even glance up at us, which told me it had been at this nightly raccoon-intended supper pile for sometime. With no smell.

Could what I seen from the bus have been a young fisher? Naturalist bus driver that I am, I knew it wasn't a skunk.

Years ago on Black Mountain over near Sumner, a black critter zipped across the trail about ten feet in front of me. I assumed it was a fisher.

At our house in Steuben a few years ago, I glanced out onto our deck and saw the usual three generations of raccoons, the two kitties, and a brownish fisher. Nobody bothered anybody. They were all chowing down on bird seed. There were no birds on the deck.

Last winter, as I was outside feeding the birds at about 5:15 a.m. before heading off to find my bus, I saw what I knew was an adult fisher. He or she was not black, but brownish like the one in Steuben, with longer rough-looking fur. He or she was hunched over near a large pine, where I pour sunflower seeds and was about 20 feet from me. He or she looked at me in the dark with a porch light illuminating him or her, then turned and kind of slinked away into the woods.

We kept a careful eye on the kitties for the next few days.

In the 21 photos on the web site, the face could have resembled the one I saw from the bus. Kind of staring, like it was also saying, "What the heck is that thing?"

Meaning the bus, of course, not the driver.

The fisher I saw last winter and the fishers I saw pictured on another web site had faces that looked more aggressive, perhaps a bit more evil -- if one of God's critters could have an evil-looking face. A bit more hairy too, than the photos of the otters or the critter I saw.

I routinely explain to Island Explorer bus passengers in Acadia National Park that there are no otters at Otter Point, Otter Cliffs, or the village of Otter Creek*, all located in or ear the park.

When I was a new teacher in Monroe, I was talking about creeks -- the name by which I knew them at the time -- while the students held puzzled looks on their faces.

Finally a sixth-grader said, "We're sorry, but we don't know what you're talking about. Do you mean brooks?"

So, the students taught the teacher.

That still doesn't explain what I saw the other day.

If you know what I saw, please e-mail me and let me know. Better yet, should you have a picture of it, please e-mail that to me too.

Had I been on foot, as my passenger had not been, would I have turned and run? Or would I have stopped and stared, too startled to run? Would it have eaten me? Nope, too bony. Would I have eaten it? Nope, too sort-of-disgusting looking.

Did it think I was disgusting looking? Was my bus disgusting looking?

The passengers on that trip along Eagle Lake Road asked me what I had seen. That's what I'm trying to figure out.

* In Maine, "creeks" are "brooks," which makes me believe that village was named by some of those New Yorkers or other out-of-staters that have visited Mount Desert Island for 150 years or so. In Pennsylvania, where I was brought up, there were creeks.

Milt Gross can be reached for corrections, harassment, or other purposes at lesstraveledway@midmaine.com.

Milton M. Gross Copyright 2011