But when Grey Lady arrived, every day at sunset, the Warm Lake would echo with all sorts of clamour sounds. Sometimes, she would poke one of her nostrils out of the water while the other nostril remained submerged. She would then blow out air as if she was playing a bamboo flute. It sounded as if she was imitating the night call of the tawny owl. At other times she would find a place in the shallows and patter the water surface ceaselessly with her claws. The resulting splashing sound could be heard from afar. It reminded me of the sound a child makes when stamping around in water barefoot in an attempt to frighten the cowardly flocks of fish. Sometimes she would also dive into the water suddenly, leaving a line of frothy bubbles in her wake. The right whale uses bubbles as a way of surrounding her prey, could it be that this is also one of the otter's hunting techniques? Maybe it was a new trick that this girl invented while playing around. When she got excited, the otter would also emit a howling sound which was at once piercing and tender. When I heard it for the first time, I thought that it must have been the call of a marsh tit or a great tit, but could the cry of tits be mingled with the sound of splashing water? What is more, these two bird cries are made up of both low and high frequency sounds. People often feel that the sound of a tit cry drills into one's ear drum when it actually suffuses its way in. To be more specific, a tit cry is similar to the merry squeak of a small girl. Here I cannot help myself but think of my mum. She was always very fond of recalling the time when my younger sister was small and the way she reacted when eating a pear. The pear is a soft, juicy and fragrant fruit. Every time my sister took a bite, she would let out a kind of euphoric squeal. At this point my mum would try to imitate the squeal, but it was nothing like it. My sister would then try as well, but with no success. In my memory, the two or so year old girl's squeal is the purest, the most natural sound in the world. A year younger or older and there is no way of reproducing that happy squeal of merriment.
Over the next three months, Grey Lady's squeaks noticeably increased in number. I was wondering whether otters, the same as wolves, use these as a way of greeting distant comrades. The howls of wolves tend to make people feel lonely and desolate. The otter's squeal, on the other hand, communicates a joyous feeling. There was one time when I unintentionally caught sight of my face in the mirror during one of her squeaks and discovered that I was smiling.
At the start of April the Yellow Star-of-Bethlehem[3] popped its head out from under a layer of snow and silently spread its petals among patches of lingering snow and fallen leaves in the dark places with little sunlight in the depths of the forest. The first time I came across it, I mistook it for pieces of star-shaped golden jewellery that someone must have dropped by accident on the snow. The scientific name for this flower is the Far East Amur Adonis. It is bright and golden in colour and extremely eye catching. The flower heads are often still covered in tiny icicles as they push daringly past crowds of timid onlookers to herald the arrival of spring.
At the sight of this fearless flower I knew that Grey Lady was soon to get married. Carnivorous animals like to use their faeces as a way of marking out their territory. Otters are no different. They like to leave piles of blackish brown faeces in clear view on rocks or tree stumps. During the heat cycle, their urine contains hormones that give off a particular odour. This serves as the mark of their identity. It passes on information regarding their gender, age, state of health and whether or not they are ready for mating. It may even contain more information that we are not aware of. The odour is very strong; it stays behind for several days and it gets transmitted by the wind to let all potential suitors know that there is an otter lady ready for mating.
On the southern bank of the Warm Lake, by the edge of my former front yard, were several sandy dens. Few days after Grey Lady arrived at the lake, she pompously occupied these dens and fashioned them into her sunbathing nests. On sunny days, she would lie contentedly in her sunbathing spot, occasionally turning from side to side, soaking in the sunshine. Recently though, she literally turned these nests into notice boards, leaving behind patches of sand blended with faeces. She then gathered several rolls of withered grass and proceeded to stain them thoroughly with urine.
One day in the afternoon I discovered that the sandy bank was pockmarked with the footprints of a male otter. The footprints were fresh, and this fellow had only passed by here that morning. The footprints were both deep and large, maybe one third larger than Grey Lady's footprints. The male otters that live in the waters of the African and South American rainforests weigh as much as thirty kilograms. The ones that live in Central Europe weigh about twelve kilograms. Changbai Shan falls into the North Temperate Zone. It has four clearly distinguishable seasons with a long and bitter winter. The harsh environment had made the animals here tough and quick-witted. From the depth of its footprints and the distance between them I could tell that this was a large otter of about seven or eight kilograms. Its claws were well-rounded and the imprint of its sole, made up of toepads and toes interspersed with the imprint of webbing, was as clear as the imprint of a seal on the soft sandy ground, not bedraggled at all. Based on the clear imprint of its tail, it swivelled behind its body in a wide arch. It might even have been in an excited state. These signs point to the conclusion that this was a quick-paced, sturdy young male.
That night, strange howls emanated from within the depths of the Warm Lake.
12:00 pm, 23 December 2001
