On our usual birding route through the south end of South Platte Park this morning, a friend and I encountered a family of mink. The parents and at least one observed offspring (litter size averages eight kits) had settled within a wood pile along the edge of a lake that connects directly with the South Platte River.
While mink are most often observed in the streams and lakes of the mountains and foothills of Colorado, they also inhabit the major river valleys of the Piedmont and Eastern Plains. Their diet consists of fish, crayfish, amphibians, birds and small mammals.
Though not rare in our region, these were the first mink that either of us had seen within South Platte Park over a combined period of more than twenty years of birding at the refuge. Such is the joy of exploring nature; her gifts are manyfold and ever changing.
