It is over two years since I went after otters with the trail cameras. This time I chose a new location where I had seen promising-looking trails leading out of the water. I got videos of an otter first time but the camera lenses were all fogged up. The same happened the second night and this clip is a "what might have been" if only it was clear.
Third time lucky, on a breezy night, the lenses stayed clear and both cameras recorded several good videos. Here are a couple of examples.
On the third night the otter(s) visited at 1930, 2140, 0210 and 0530. I watched all the clips several times and couldn't decide whether it was all the same animal or more than one. Then on the fourth night there was clear evidence of three - a mother and two pups. In this clip one of the pups is calling to the mother who is just out of shot on the left.
Here are all three. I think it is mother on the bank, one pup in the water and if you watch carefully the second one swims across in the background. Either that or it is an alligator! The camera will only record 20s at a time at night and then takes a 3-4s break while it saves the result to the card. I have merged three clips here but the joins are quite noticeable.
Here is another clip showing two otters getting out of the water seconds apart.
As you can see below, the frame grabs from the infrared videos have been less successful than with the foxes in the garden, probably because the cameras are performing right at their limit.
So far two nights with the colour flash camera have been disappointing. The first time the positioning wasn't quite right.
The second time I had left grass in the way.
This camera was in last night and will be tonight so I hope there will be more images to come.
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