This post is for

Danny Brown

who told me about these creatures, and showed me where I could see them.

For the past week, I’ve been finishing up my walk with a visit to what I call Danny’s Hide…the area of Des Peres Creek that Danny showed me. The day I met him there, I couldn’t see the mink family at all; over the past few days, I’ve just been able to see one mink at a time, a dark streak in the water as it swam from one bank to the other, or as it ran across the bridge that spans the creek here. I was content to just catch these fleeting glimpses of them, but yesterday, I got a good look at my first dry Mink when I had gone to the Muny, to hear and watch the rehearsals for “Legally Blonde” (the Muny Season starts this week.)….a mink ran across the path, and disappeared into the grass on the other side.

This morning, I walked to Danny's Hide with no great expectation. The weather was just beautiful...cloudy and about 20 deg C...I'd finished a brisk walk of about an hour and a half, I was pleasantly tired, and went and sat on the creek-bank. After a while, I saw a mink running across as usual, and this time, I was able to take a shot: I watched this one running around the rocks: Across the bank, it moved, with sinuous grace: It disappeared again into the reeds and rushes: and swam across to the other side, then ran back over the bridge again. Now why they use the edge of this bridge is a mystery to me, when they can swim across the creek perfectly well! And then...I just happened to take my eye from the camera viewfinder...and looked down...and guess what was just a few feet away from me! Here was one of the babies; it seemed almost grown up to me, but it still had the "cuteness factor" that all babies have. I gently lowered the camera and got both the shots and a quick video:

How lovely to find what one wants to see, much closer than one expected!

Well, that’s today’s mink story…..thank you, Danny Brown!