River otter trotting/loping (they have an odd gait on land) across frozen pond, Western U.S., winter. This was one of five otters (probably a family group--mother & four mostly grown young) that I stumbled across using the open water at the outlet stream on a small lake in Idaho. After about a 1/2 hour of fairly fruitless fishing (I think I saw one fish caught) four of the otters trotted out across the ice and disappeared in the forest beyond. This particular river otter was under the ice hunting at the time and by the time it surfaced the other otters were gone. It took it about fifteen minutes to figure out what had happened and where the others had gone.