A cub goes missing on OtterCam

The cubs are now nearly six months old and are becoming more adventurous.  Each time they pass the cameras there seems to be one lagging behind, distracted by interesting smells.  Last week the mother and one cub appeared in front of one camera looking anxious and obviously waiting for the other cub to catch up.  After three minutes they gave up and went down to the water.

A few minutes later they were back on the bank, staring up the slope waiting for the second cub. The video is interesting because we can hear the difference between the cub's high-pitched squeak and the mother's whistle.  Two hours later the missing cub appeared briefly on the same camera, squeaking loudly in the hope of making contact.

It is a pity the reunion didn't take place in front of the cameras but some time later they were all back together.  The following night all three went past the cameras with both cubs keeping close to mother.  Lesson learned, for now.

Sweet sixteen

I have never seen anything like this.  Several thousand ladybirds, all in one place.  They were clustered on posts supporting a newt fence in Coventry and there were hundreds on each post and dozens of posts.  Most were on the east sides of the posts with a few on the north sides. This is a new species to me, 16-spot Ladybird (Tytthaspis sedecimpunctata).

The 16-spot Ladybird is one of only a few vegetarian ladybird species (Orange Ladybird, 22-spot Ladybird and 24-spot Ladybird being others) and feeds on pollen, nectar and fungi.  It is mainly a grassland specialist but is also found in brownfield sites.  It is pretty common and widespread down south but doesn't venture farther north than south Yorkshire, which is a pity as we have plenty of grass up here.

I also saw a couple of 7-spot Ladybirds which show how small the 16-spot Ladybirds are.

And a real bonus, a solitary Adonis Ladybird, only the second one I have seen.

'Twas a dark and stormy night on OtterCam

We got off lightly in Storm Darragh compared with some places but after 24 hours of heavy rain and strong winds the water level had risen significantly - enough to affect the viewpoint of the cameras.  Anticipating where the otters will be is hard enough at the best of times but this made it more difficult.  This is another "if only" video, where it could have been much better.  The otters were out of view of one camera and not quite in view of others which made it difficult to stitch together in editing.  Added to that a reed was blowing in the wind, the camera supports were moving around and there was water on the lenses.  This was the best I could do.  It contains behaviour I haven't seen before, with one of the cubs grooming the back of its mother's head - she was very patient.

It's also another good example of how light from several cameras improves the night-time pictures.

The cubs star on OtterCam

OtterCam is on a roll at the moment with the cubs showing up nearly every day.  I think they are only about 20 weeks old but they are getting more confident and more interested in exploring. Here are a few more videos from the past week.  First the family coming down the bank to the water.

The next time only one cub came out of the water - the other stayed in and we get a glimpse of it as the mother goes back in.  The cub on the bank re-entered in a hurry and with a splash, perhaps wanting to catch up but it might have been spooked by a robin on the bank.

The third time mother came out with both cubs.

Three of the cameras weren't perfectly positioned for this action so I have realigned them, hoping for even better things next week.

The latest from OtterCam

There are several cameras watching for otters at the moment because there has been a lot of activity.  The first video shows how the picture quality improves as more cameras are activated and add their light to the image.

Otters have the amazing ability to live in two worlds, the underwater world for hunting and travelling and the terrestrial world for everything else.  Their senses are finely tuned to both worlds - vibrations and smell being especially important underwater and smell and hearing in particular on land.  A couple of recent videos show how they smell their way around in the dark. First the family travelling up the bank in the small hours.

And two nights later the dog doing the same.  He probably rarely encounters the female and cubs but they all keep in touch via scent.

Finally an amazing video from yesterday.  The dog otter came out for an afternoon nap right in front of the camera.  The whole episode lasted for over three minutes but I have edited it down to less than half.  He looks a bit weary but was always alert.

Surprisingly, and disappointingly, another camera aimed at exactly this spot failed to react at all. At least it is justification for having more than one to keep an eye on things.

Autumn ladybirds

It's time we had a break from mustelids so here is something different.  Ladybirds hibernate over winter and many species can be found tucked up on old gravestones.  I have only been looking for ladybirds for a couple of years but I am learning where to find them and what to expect.  This winter is turning out to be strange.

2024 has been a bad year for many insects - especially moths, butterflies and bees, probably because of the very wet weather in the first half of the year, but it has also been a bad year for ladybirds, with many fewer than expected being reported.  I wonder if this might be because there weren't many aphids around for the ladybird larvae to eat.

The North East Ladybird Spot is a citizen science project that has been collecting ladybird records from the vice-counties of County Durham, South Northumberland and North Northumberland since February 2021.  It now has getting on for 10,000 records from nearly 200 observers, so is starting to have data worth analysing.  Suspecting there might be something odd about this season I compared records for 01 July to 14 November in 2023 and 2024, choosing those dates as a rough approximation of the new generation.  The number of records fell by 54%, which was no surprise although there might be several explanations for that.  I also looked at records for each of the top 10 species.  Nine of them registered falls from -40% for 10-spot Ladybird to -94% for Eyed Ladybird.  The one outlier was Orange Ladybird which showed a gain of +153%.  Note that the database contains records of occurrence but not abundance so this relates to numbers of reports, not of ladybirds.  If all ladybirds were counted the Orange Ladybird would be even more of an outlier.

Apart from lots and lots of Orange Ladybirds I have seen a few others, quite a few with unusual colour or pattern variations.

These are also all 10-spot Ladybirds.

A "typical" 10-spot Ladybird looks like this one below, so to see mostly unusual variants is strange.

This is a typical Cream-streaked Ladybird, a conifer specialist.

I have see several unusual forms of this one as well.

A few other nice finds were 18-spot Ladybird,

Eyed Ladybird,

Water Ladybird,

and Red Marsh Ladybird.

I expect there will be a few more ladybird expeditions before the winter is out, always hoping to find something new.

Another new weasel

I hadn't seen a weasel in the camera box for about four weeks and then this one turned up. Judging by its size and proportions it is a female and looking at the patterns of the gular (under chin) spots and flank markings it is one I haven't seen before, so the seventh different weasel this year.  It has white toes on the left front foot (but not the right), a very distinctive left flank line,

and these gular spots,

so it should be easy to identify if it returns.

You'll see from the video that I have remodelled the inside of the camera box to make it more interesting for weasels to explore and this one certainly had a good look round.  These pictures are from a week ago and it hasn't returned so far.  Weasel presence and abundance is strongly related to the presence of prey, mainly voles.  I have seen very few bank voles and no field voles on the cameras recently which is probably why there are few weasels.  There are plenty of wood mice but they are nocturnal and the weasels are diurnal so the mice probably feel fairly safe in the camera box.