The current group of cubs are the most boisterous I have seen, possibly because there are three of them. They are full of curiosity, especially when it comes to trail cameras. Here's what I am up against.
When I set up a camera the last thing I do is clean the lens. Here's the first thing that happens next.
The trail cameras give us a remarkable insight into the otters' lives, something we could never see otherwise. Here is the mother bringing in another fish. The delay between disappearing from view and reappearing with a fish was 18 seconds. She doesn't seem impressed with the cub's manners.
You'd think an otter would be pretty fearless as an apex predator, but not always.
The cubs are already spending less time close to their mother so it is harder to record them all in the frame at the same time, even though they are only about five months old. I'll report back on what they get up to next.
Growing up as an otter cub looks to be such fun. Two nights ago was by far the best fight (play fight) I have yet seen. It went on for about 12 minutes and yielded over 100 videos on the several cameras. Each camera will record for only 20 seconds at night and takes up to a second to restart so the frantic action is rather disjointed. Add to that the otters constantly disappearing out of the frame and it is rather difficult to put it all together. I spent all yesterday evening sorting through the videos. This is not constant action but a few edited highlights from four cameras so you'll get the idea. It started rather suddenly with two cubs fighting but the third cub and then mother joined in and the action was crazy.
Two nights before that they were all much more relaxed. I have seen mutual grooming before but never like this. Otters spend a lot of time out of the water looking after their fur but they also seem to get a lot of pleasure from grooming each other.
Here is a short version of the video.
If you have time this is most of the whole episode (over three minutes). It is quite relaxing to watch as well. The mother seemed to be very thirsty and several times took a drink.
The otters are producing so much video at present that I can barely keep up. I already have more and will post it soon.
The dog otter doesn't get much of a look in on the blog now that the triplets are here but he is still around. He takes no part in bringing up the cubs but he must be aware of them, by sound and scent at least. To bring you up to date here are a few of his recent videos. Before the rain in the past couple of weeks he was resting when he was disturbed by a moorhen.
And we had one brief snowfall when he put in an appearance.
One reason he stays around is that the living is easy.
A couple of nights ago he had two fresh wounds on his left flank. I haven't edited this one seamlessly but I have doubled up the views from the first two cameras. It looks quite superficial and he doesn't seem limited but I expect he was in a fight - perhaps to defend his territory although I haven't seen a strange otter around on the cameras. I'll look out for him in the coming days.
The mother and cubs are producing more videos almost every day so there will be more from them soon.
The mother otter is busy fishing for four but seems to have no difficulty finding enough for them all to eat. The first video starts with mother on the bank with a fish and the cubs all raced to get it. After a tussle one succeeded and the other two followed mother back into the water. When she returned with a second fish only one cub was around to take it. That left one hungry cub waiting by the water's edge. It was probably worth the wait because the third fish was the biggest. All this action took only three minutes.
When the mother brings a fish (still alive) she doesn't give it to a cub but usually holds it on the ground until one of them takes it. Although there may be a fight for possession of the fish, once one cub has it the others seem to accept it and wait for another, presumably confident that their turn will come. If no cub arrives to take the fish she will eat it herself. She also eats all the tails etc that they leave.
As the light improved the camera changed to colour video and the fish kept coming. Mother brought in a roach and one cub claimed it. Another discovered a left-over tail and decided to eat that.
Eventually the cubs were full and they used the fish to practice catching them. This cub repeatedly took its fish back into the water to "catch" it over a period of eight minutes before taking it out of view. I presume it was eventually eaten. This is very interesting behaviour in cubs only about 18 weeks old and seems to be spontaneous.
Another fish was a perch, also used for catching practice.
Eventually the family moved on after80 minutes in front of the cameras and in that time the mother caught at least 13 fish.
On another morning the otter went fishing on her own, presumably having left the cubs in a safe place. She went past this camera four times, each time returning with a good-sized roach between 30 seconds and five minutes later.
I expect the mother will have to work even harder for the next several weeks until the cubs start catching fish for real.
It must be fun to be an otter cub, spending your days playing, exploring and fighting while your mother catches fish for you. Soon enough you'll have to grow up and catch your own dinner but for now there is fun to be had. Here are the triplets enjoying themselves and their mother just lets them get on with it, hoping they will burn off a bit of excess energy.
It is fascinating to see how quickly they are changing. When they first appeared just over a week ago they hardly left their mother's side and yet already they are more confident and curious, trailing a minute behind while they explore their world.
Here they are again, playing and fighting in the snow. This time mother even joined in.
Three longer videos than usual this time but I hope you enjoy them. The otters are producing so much quality video at the moment that I can barely keep up. I'll have another update soon.
Well Mrs Otter certainly kept me guessing. Her previous cubs moved on at the beginning of May and straight away she was courting the dog otter. Given that an otter's gestation is 63 days I was assuming that new cubs would be born around the second week of July and would first appear about now. But several things made me doubt it. Videos showed no obvious sign of pregnancy and she and the dog otter were going around together for weeks when courtship is said to last 3-4 days. And three weeks after she should have given birth there was no sign that she was feeding young. Then about three weeks ago she appeared with an obviously swollen belly so I thought that might be pregnancy rather than lactation. But then bang on cue last Friday she appeared with triplets, about 16 weeks old.
Going in to check the cameras the day before I had heard a couple of whistles from a cub only a few yards away in the reeds and a low-pitched mewing answer from the mother. They obviously knew I was there and never came into view but it was an exciting encounter.
Heavy rain last week flooded the old bridge and the cameras there caught the family splashing across in daylight.
The next sighting of the family was going down the bank, turning and coming back up and then going back down again, the cubs mostly sticking very close to mother although one was lagging behind at the end.
I am trying out a new trail camera, a Woopeak TC22. It has a number of limitations (more on that another time) and it misses a lot of things but two advantages are a wide-angle view and the ability to record colour video in low light. Here is how it saw the same episode. It also recorded for long enough to pick up the laggard.
The following morning the cameras saw a cub on its own, temporarily separated from the others and whistling for its mother. I was pleased to see it was back with the family by yesterday morning.
This is only the second time in eight sets of otter cubs over nearly seven years that I have seen triplets. Last time, in late 2022, one cub was washed away in a flood when they were still quite small and only two survived.
Unlike other mammals otters are non-seasonal breeders and will have young at any time of year so these cubs will be around until late spring next year. I hope to be able to share many more videos in the coming weeks and months.
The camera box in the garden is generally not baited but relies on the animals' curiosity to tempt them in. It also attracts lots of mice, voles and shrews and so will smell of prey. Weasels are usually happy to explore the box but stoats are rare visitors. The female stoat who has been hanging around the garden for a while recently made two visits to the box.
There were also two very brief sightings of a weasel running through so I was tempted to put in a mouse from a trap in the roof, hoping the weasel might take it. But the stoat got there first. It was interesting that, having found it, the stoat checked the coast was clear before taking the mouse away, something that weasels do regularly. Unfortunately the camera was in between its maximum 20s night-time recordings when the stoat came back to pick up the mouse. The banging in the background is the sound of fireworks.
I put in another mouse and this time there was a rare night-time visit from a weasel but it didn't take the mouse, probably because it was still frozen.
Before the weasel had time to change its mind the stoat was there early the next morning and did take the mouse. It was back six minutes later to check it hadn't missed another one.
The next bait was a bank vole and this was taken by the weasel. Again she checked the coast was clear before running off with her prize.
I have plenty more mice in the freezer so it will be interesting to see if these two become regulars.
