OtterCam in March

The camera in the culvert picks up the dog otter two or three nights a week as he goes around on his patrol.  One time the camera was a bit crooked, either because it had slipped or because the otter had knocked it.  If he was not too close to the camera I can correct it on the photos (below) but not on the videos.

On one night the otter caught and ate two frogs within four minutes at about 2 o'clock in the morning.  He caught them in the stream just downstream of the culvert and brought them back in to eat.  Each frog disappeared in a few mouthfuls.

Having finished the first one it took him only 10 seconds to return with another.

Four bricks I had put by the sluice gate to support the cameras a while back were washed downstream into the culvert during a storm and became stuck half way down.  The otter likes to use them to eat on because dismembering a slippery wriggling frog inside a slippery pipe in the water flow in pitch dark is not easy.  Here is the first video (if you are of a nervous disposition perhaps you shouldn't watch).  This is all the time it takes him to catch and eat a frog and go looking for another one.

Moments later he was back with the second frog (a bit more gruesome).

A few nights later the camera picked up the otter with another frog.

I hope all that didn't put you off your dinner.

For the second month in a row I haven't found the female otter and her pups on the cameras.  All that means is that they didn't visit the bank in front of the camera in the nights it was there.  They could well be in another part of the lake or be elsewhere in mother's territory, perhaps with a view to the pups dispersing soon, as they are now about a year old.

The dog otter is a regular on the camera in the culvert.  Since these pictures were recorded the sluice gate has been raised to its highest level and the water flow in the culvert has stopped so I crawled up the pipe and removed the bricks.  The dog otter still travels through and can jump up the gate quite easily.  I'll keep an eye on what is going on with the cameras and post another report next month if I find anything of interest.