Catch of the day

I was working at my desk when Eric came by to let me know there was a whale close to shore.  I went out to see if it was still there and didn't see it, but something else caught the corner of my eye while scanning for signs of the whale.  It was strange — I didn't immediately have an idea about what I was seeing.  From a distance it looked like a piece of driftwood, but it appeared to be swimming, so I kept watching as it approached the shore.  Here's my first view with the zoom lens:

 

 

Things were happening kind of quickly, so while looking through the camera I still wasn't quite sure what it was, but I kept taking photos:

 

 

Perhaps you can tell that this is a mammal swimming with a large fish?  In the previous photo, you can just barely see the mammal's nose while it held the fish crosswise in its mouth.

 

I finally processed that this was a River Otter (Lontra canadensis).  I don't think I've seen one with such a large fish, so although the otter disappeared behind some rocks, I had an idea about where it might be headed to eat the fish, so I checked to see if the otter had come ashore and whether I had a chance to identify the fish.  Here's the next view, zoomed in from far away (luckily I had a large lens on the camera!):

 

 

 

And another showing the length of the fish:

 

 

 

Wow!

 

I'm pretty sure this is a Monkeyface Prickleback (Cebidichthys violaceus).  I did a quick measurement from the photo and estimated that the prickleback was about as long as the otter's body (minus the tail).  And knowing the average length of an adult otter's body, I was able to estimate that the prickleback was ~27 inches long.  I read that the maximum size of Monkeyface Pricklebacks is ~30 inches, so this is about as big as they get.

 

One more picture of the otter starting to eat its prize:

 

 

 

I'd call that the catch of the day!