Exciting news on OtterCam

I haven't had much opportunity to look for otters with the trail cameras since the lockdown began but I have been able to put one in the culvert a few times and it shows that an otter goes through nearly every night.  I did one night in April for Vivien Kent's Otter Network's annual survey and the otter obligingly went past the camera, and returned seconds later.

The next video was from three nights in May.  I can't tell which otter this is - Vivien thinks from the head shape it might be a female or a yearling male but says it it very hard to tell from these pictures.

Last week I put in the camera again and it picked up an otter nine times in seven nights.  At one point twice an otter went north through the culvert within five minutes which is intriguing.  I can't tell whether it is the same animal that completed the loop a different way and came round again or two different otters - probably the latter.  The next night an otter came past and sniffed the camera.

Two nights later an otter came south past the camera, briefly looking back over its shoulder, and returned immediately, calling as it did so.  It stood up at the sluice gate to look over the top.  There was a short break in the recording (the camera can only do 20s clips at night).  When it restarted the otter was again coming south towards the camera and behind it was a small cub, the first I have seen since January.  I think the cub was too small to jump down over the sluice gate without encouragement from the mother (it must have been pretty scary in the dark).  You can tell the cub has never seen a camera before but it will get used to it!

Here is the video.

The following night the camera didn't see an otter and that was the last of the batch.  As you can guess the camera is still there so I am excited to see if we get more views of the cub.

One thing that puzzles me is the timing.  I have been monitoring the otters with trail cameras since February 2019. There were two well-grown cubs with their mother that month and then only solo otters from March to September.  In October 2019 I saw a mother with two cubs and they appeared every month until January 2020.  Since then I have seen just a single otter on each month's recordings.  This cub is small, probably only four or five months old, so it was probably born in January or February.

Otters are said to be non-seasonal breeders and to have a litter every 18 months or so as the cubs stay with their mother for up to a year.  If this is all the same female she is producing a new litter of cubs in less than a year.