News from OtterCam

After several months with not much happening, suddenly there is exciting news from OtterCam. The first evidence of new cubs was about three weeks ago, with a glimpse of two tails and a tell-tale squeak from a cub.  A week later a clear, if brief, sight of the mother otter with two small cubs.  At this young age they keep very close to her.

These cubs are small.  The previous cubs were last seen with their mother on 03 May, on which night she was seriously courting the dog otter.  Assuming she mated around then, the new cubs will have been born in early July.  They turned up on the cameras again last weekend in the snow at perhaps 22 weeks of age.  This time the family came up the bank twice, towards three cameras although the bottom camera missed the second visit.

The dog otter also went by in the snow, having a little slide down the slope.  You can see how he isn't sure about the ice and tests it before deciding it won't bear his weight.  He then dives through a hole in the ice made by an otter, perhaps him as well, about an hour before.

And on the most recent episode he caught and ate a fish.  Luckily he had just gone down into the water so the camera was already recording.  He must have caught it immediately and it didn't take him long to polish it off.

The new cubs are the sixth set I have seen on the cameras since I started following my local otters in February 2019.  I'll post more photos and videos as these cubs grow over the next few months.