I have had up to five cameras set to watch the otters in the past month but of course they catch anything else going by. Birds that have triggered the cameras on this small path include robin, wren, moorhen, water rail, redwing, song thrush, blackbird,mute swan, jay, magpie and sparrowhawk. Mammals other than otters have been roe deer, red fox, badger, brown rat, bank vole and wood mouse. Here they are in descending order of size.
On one occasion the otter sniffed the air, decided not to come out of the water, and swam off. Moments later a fox came by so the otter may have smelt it and chosen to avoid it. The video also shows well the relative size of an otter and a fox.
Things have changed with my local foxes in the past few weeks. Until Christmas I regularly saw both cubs as well as the parents and they were getting through a lot of dog biscuits every night. Since then I have seen very little of them. Only a few biscuits are being eaten so I have drastically reduced the supply. Foxes still visit the garden but don't stay long. They like chicken skin and little bits of dog food (I spoil them) but aren't very keen on the biscuits. This is the dog looking very handsome.
This was the vixen a couple of nights ago.
This was the dog snatching a real treat at Christmas.
From December, here is the short-tailed cub.
And from last night, the long-tailed cub.
Most fox cubs will disperse from their parents' territory to make their way in the world during their first winter so it may be that the short-tailed cub has already gone. Male cubs are much more likely to move on while female cubs may stay in the family group but I don't know what sex these two were. I'll try to keep an eye on which foxes are here but their visits are brief so it isn't easy without spending all evening sitting looking through the back door window.
It won't surprise you that my favourite targets for trail cameras are otters. Badgers are beautiful but at this time of year all they do is sniff, scratch, shuffle around and eat a few peanuts. Foxes are less easy and very skittish and all they do is eat or run away. Otters are mysterious, elusive and exotic and the videos have demonstrated lots of different behaviours, some rarely seen before. Interestingly, otters are not intrinsically nocturnal and they probably wouldn't be if it weren't for thousands of years of persecution by humans. Left in peace they do sometimes show up in daytime.
We still haven't had any real snow but there have been a few hard frosts. As I wrote before, otters don't mind the cold but it has been interesting to watch how they cope with the ice. The first video shows the dog (I think) and he has obviously seen ice before. It isn't thick enough to bear his weight but he has no worries about swimming underneath it.
About an hour later a solo otter appeared, my guess is it is probably the same animal on patrol. After a good look, listen and sniff he came up the bank and then returned to the same hole in the ice.
Later that night another solo otter appeared but this is the cub. It seems to be on its own and has probably now been abandoned by its mother (it is about 11-12 months old). It is still in the territory but will presumably have to move on soon. You can hear its constant squeak, a contact call which now goes unanswered. There was no sign of the mother on the cameras on the same night.
More evidence that this is the cub - this is how it deals with thin ice.
So I think there are still three otters around, the cub and two adults, all acting independently. I'll keep the cameras going to watch what goes on. My guess is that we won't see more cubs before the summer.
I have seen only single otters on the trail cameras in the past week or so. Because otters look very alike on infrared video it is difficult to tell if this is all the dog otter. I am expecting the mother and cub to go their separate ways any day now and it will then be very difficult to tell who is who. I have added a fifth camera looking back along a path into the reedbed. In the first video a single otter triggers all five cameras in just over a minute. The second clip in the sequence is lit by three cameras at once and you can see how much that improves the image.
We have had a little bit of wet snow but not as much as I was hoping for for the videos. In this video the otter goes down the bank, triggering all four cameras, before swimming off into the icy water. Rather him than me.
At last, a change from trail camera videos! At one time the garden sparrowhawk(s) dominated this blog but they haven't featured here for a couple of months.
I am now completely unsure about how many sparrowhawks visit the garden, or even if there is currently more than one. I wrote before about differences in appearance between them but it has become more confusing. The bird above in the fog is probably the main bird, visiting the garden every day but rarely sitting on the perch for a portrait. Note he has a prominent supercillium (eyebrow) which is pinkish at the front and white farther back.
The next two photos are both the same bird, taken seconds apart. The eye looks different in the two photos. The supercillium is faint in both photos but otherwise he looks like the first one.
The feathers are fluffed up to keep warm but flattened down as he prepares for a strike. You can see the difference here.
The following day this bird was here, with someone else's feather stuck on his beak.
He was obviously still hungry and was trying to flush out the small birds hiding in the gooseberries.
We have pretty poor weather over the past few weeks with lots of rain and sleet and very little sun which hasn't made photography easy and hasn't encouraged the bird to sit in the rain.
The latest visit was on a worse day with heavy rain and the wind from the north which was a pity as the sparrowhawk was wearing a very exotic five-pointed crown but it was very difficult to get a photo through the rain-streaked window.
So I have given up worrying about whether there is more than one sparrowhawk visiting and I just enjoy seeing them when they are here.
