Picking up the scent on OtterCam

This is another short video from the recent cold snap.  It shows well how the young otters are learning to find their way around in the dark by scent. Theirs must be a different world to ours, one that is difficult to imagine.  As usual, they sniff the camera as they go by.

Ice-skating on OtterCam

A bonus post from the trail cameras last weekend.  They are set to watch the edge of the water so this was a bit of a surprise.  Mostly out of shot, the two otter cubs were playing on the ice, running and sliding just for the fun of it.  At one point their mother joined in.  The few clips from two cameras can't really be edited together so I have shown them one after the other.  (Those are leaves under the ice, not fish.)  If we get another freeze I'll turn one or two of the cameras round in case they do it again.

Growing up fast on OtterCam

I only recently posted otter videos with the first sighting of twin cubs but the latest footage is enchanting so I thought you might like to see it.  The first video shows the mother playing with one attention-seeking cub at the water's edge.  I presume the other cub was close by out of shot - on a couple of occasions I think it calls and mother keeps looking to the right (as we look at it). Eventually they swim off in that direction.

The latest video shows the three otters on the ice and snow during the current cold snap.  The cubs now look quite big and are learning to explore the scents in their new world.

A grisly end for a ladybird

When I first saw this ladybird on the back of a chair in my dining room I thought it was hibernating but a closer look revealed something more sinister.  The seven-spot ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata) had been parasitised by a tiny parasitic braconid wasp (Dinocampus coccinellae).

The wasp lays an egg in the female ladybird using its sharp ovipositor to pierce the armour. When the wasp larva hatches it uses its large mandibles to kill and eat any other eggs or larvae which might be competition.  In its second, third and fourth instars (developmental stages) the larva eats the fat bodies and gonads of the ladybird but leaves the vital organs so the ladybird doesn't die.  When she lays her egg the wasp also injects a virus, Dinocampus coccinellae paralysis virus, which has no effect on the wasp or its larva but paralyses the ladybird by the time the larva emerges from its body, after about three weeks.  The larva then spins a cocoon between the ladybird's legs so it is protected by the immobile body above.  The adult wasp emerges about a week later.  My photos show the ladybird with the opened cocoon underneath it, after the wasp has emerged.  The ladybird is 5mm long so the opened end of the cocoon is 1mm.  Remarkably, 25% of ladybirds survive this ordeal although this one didn't.

And if this wasn't all strange enough, the wasps are produced by arrhenotokous parthenogenesis so they are all female.  And Dinocampus coccinellae can itself be parasitised by a tiny hyperparasitoid wingless wasp, Gelis agilis, which looks like an ant.  Isn't nature amazing?

I took about 100 photos over two days, experimenting with the focus and the lighting.  I used a Raynox 150 lens on the front of a Canon 100mm macro lens with a ring flash and an LED work light as a back light.  Most photos were out of focus, badly lit or badly exposed but these few were OK.  The first below is from the other side.

Good news on OtterCam

I had given up hope, but it turns out I was just too pessimistic and impatient.  In early November  the cameras showed the mother otter moving three very small cubs a few days before the floods.  There was then a sighting of mother swimming with a single cub eight weeks ago, and since then no sign of a cub, just an adult otter on its own.  I had assumed that two cubs had been lost in the floods and that the third hadn't survived.  But at 4 o'clock this morning...

The one cub seen in November was very small and didn't swim (or even walk) confidently but these two are now good swimmers.  Unseen by the first camera one cub got out to have a look at it but another camera was watching.

I very much doubt the the third cub has survived but it will be great to watch these two as they grow up.  And I'll learn to be more patient, and to have more trust in mother otters.  They generally know what they are doing.

News from OtterCam

The otter cameras have been picking up only a solo otter in the past few weeks and then only occasionally.  There has been no sign of a cub so I fear the one we saw previously didn't survive the floods or the big freeze in December.  Because I generally can't tell one lone otter from another I don't know if this one is a resident or a new arrival but it seems to know it is being watched.  The otters are usually aware of my cameras, even in daylight when they are simply recording and not shining infrared light.

Otters very often sniff the cameras as they pass but don't seem to be put off.  Perhaps they are used to my scent.

This is the latest sighting and again the otter came to sniff the camera.  There was a third camera watching but its lens was misted up.  Fortunately these two covered the action.

And here's a bonus.  Another fox video which was retrieved just too late to make my previous OtterCam post.  Foxes are very wary of the cameras in the dark, perhaps because they can see the faint red light, but they take no notice in daylight.

And another bonus.  A brief sighting of a high-speed weasel (a distant cousin of the otter) so I have added a slow motion replay.

More parakeets

The parakeets have been regulars in the garden since they reappeared in November. They are not very agile on the feeders but climb around carefully using the beak as an extra foot.

They like peanuts and sunflower seeds and will also go on the new mesh seed feeder.

Generally there are one or two at a time but the most I have seen together is six.  I managed to get five in one photo.

Another time they were in the top of the trees just above the house.  I went out to see what all the noise was about and found they were scolding a sparrowhawk sitting in the next tree.  Here's a short clip of the noise.