Trail cameras have the obvious advantage of being able to show us things we could never see for ourselves. I have been following the local otters for most of the last three years, seeing what they get up to and which animals are about whilst only occasionally getting a glimpse of one myself. This year there was a lot of courtship behaviour in mid February so I was expecting the young to be born in mid April and for the cub(s) to be following the mother around from mid October. In the end the first sight of cubs was early November but they were smaller than I expected, still being carried around by the mother two weeks later. A few days later heavy rain led to flooding and I fear that two of the three cubs were swept away. This video was recorded about a month ago and shows one cub going for a brief swimming lesson with its mother. It is still very small and isn't really able to keep up through the leaves. Since then I haven't seen any further sign of it but the lake has been frozen so mother may be keeping it safe somewhere. If it does survive we shall know about it from the trail cameras.
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