Breaking the ice

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.