It is several months since I posted images from the otter trail cameras so here is an update on recent activity. I had a camera in this position at the water's edge in the summer with very few sightings of otters. Recently it picked up this handsome animal at 9am.
As ever, it isn't easy to tell one otter from another, especially on black & white infrared videos. However, in daylight this one has a little pink mark on its nose, pink under the right side of its chin, and white marks around the mouth.
Late last winter I was seeing three otters on the cameras in daylight and it was easy to tell this one was the dog. This how he looked then - with a less effective lens on the camera. He still has the same marks so I am sure it is the same animal.
The cameras are currently only seeing one otter at a time and always full grown animals. However, on one recent evening two recordings were made within two minutes and I think they are likely to be different individuals. The first came from the water, left a scent mark and went back in. Two minutes later an otter hurried down the bank, sniffed the very spot marked by the first, and then followed it into the water. The "second" otter does look very wet, as if it had just got out of the water, so it is possible it just looped round to the same spot again.
There is a camera in the culvert which records a passing otter several times a week, without me being able to tell which it is, or even if it is the same individual. One night this week an otter went past with something in its mouth. It continued past the other three cameras but on all of them it is going away from the camera. Looking at it frame by frame I think it is carrying a large rat. I made a second version of the video with three pauses so you can see the rat's tail. It is interesting that it is carrying prey rather than eating it - perhaps a mother taking food back to the holt?
The last video comes from yesterday at 11am. Again the otter moves north through the culvert (where it was dark enough for the camera still to be in infrared mode) and three minutes later appears on the other cameras. From the markings under its chin I think this is the dog again.
There has been no sign of cubs so far this year. Last year's mother separated from her one surviving cub at the end of November and would ordinarily be ready to mate or already have mated by that time. Over the winter there were three recognisably different full-grown otters on the cameras which I assumed to be mother, newly-independent youngster, and a dog. The cameras then picked up courtship behaviour on 12 February this year which looked as though it would lead to mating. Otter pregnancies last 63 days so a November mating would lead to newborn cubs in January and a mid February mating to cubs in mid April. Young otters will generally follow their mother around from six months of age so if last year's mother had produced another litter I would have expected to see the youngsters before now. If mating was in February it may have been a different female and the cubs should appear soon. Female otters will usually produce no more than two or three litters in a lifetime so it may be that the current resident female isn't that same as last year. If a cub or cubs show up I'll post the pictures here.
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