End of year favourites - Otters

I could have put on otter videos for every one of my end of year favourites as there have been so many quality recordings.  The previous cubs were last seen with their mother in May, at which time she was looking very frisky, and my guess is that the next cubs were born in July.  When they first appeared on camera in October they were probably only three months old but they have grown quickly.

Spoilt for choice, I have chosen two recent videos of the new cubs.  The first is from early November - the mother came out of the water to leave a scent mark and went back in but stayed close by.  The cubs were a few seconds behind and very keen to explore rather than catch her up.  They seem happy to trail farther behind than I have seen before, perhaps showing an independent streak already.

A shorter video from early December  showed the family on the move.  I think this set of cubs has been showing more in daylight than previously so I hope that continues.

End of year favourites - Shrews

WeaselCam has been on tour a few times this year but has failed to record a weasel away from here.  It has, however, been good at recording other small mammals.  While in Williwood, the home of Denise & Phil, the box was visited by three species of shrew within an hour, providing an opportunity to compare their shape, body size and tail length.  From the top they are common shrew, pygmy shrew and water shrew.

Here's the video.

And here are the three individual species - common shrew,

pygmy shrew,

and water shrew.

End of year favourites - Heron

The trail cameras get a lot of "non-target" captures, mostly birds.  At this time of year it is mainly robins, blackbirds and moorhens but earlier in the year there were plenty of ducks, geese and swans.  They rarely do anything interesting so I don't save the videos but every now and then something interesting turns up.  Herons do appear on the camera occasionally, but usually much too close and out of focus.  This time two cameras were watching to see a heron catch a water shrew.

Notice a second shrew running along the bank and then making a quick exit when it sees the heron.

There was a second video a few days later which I am surprised to find I haven't posted before. Somehow the heron knew there was a water shrew behind the tree and caught it.  It still had to bring the shrew down to the water to dunk it and make it easier to swallow.

End of year favourites - Weasel

2024 has been the year of the weasel.  I have had at least one camera set more or less every day, mostly in the camera box.  At one stage the camera there was recording two visits a day, but fewer in the early part of the year and more recently.

In March I set a trap, baited with carrot, hoping to catch one of the rabbits.  When I looked through the kitchen window the next morning I could see the trap was empty but as I watched a weasel appeared.  It went through the camera box and as it emerged I was willing it not to go into the rabbit trap but, being curious by nature, of course it did.  I went out to release it within a minute or two and it didn't seem distressed, just trying to work out how to escape.  Once I had opened the door it ran, but only as far as the camera box where it turned round to have a good look at me.  Even when it had gone through to the other side it turned round to check on me. Here's the video.

The next video is from June and features the two main weasels of the year, two males I call weasel 1 (white paws) and weasel 2 (brown paws) - there have been seven different weasels altogether.  I had been leaving a dead wood mouse under a slate to give the camera time to react.  On this occasion weasel 1 came and took the mouse.

Fifteen minutes later weasel 2 appeared and could smell the mouse but couldn't find it and eventually had to give up.

There were lots of weasel visits up to late summer but fewer in autumn.  I am hoping for many more in 2025.

End of year favourites - Water shrew

This was probably the biggest surprise of the year.  I had been putting dead field mice in the camera box for the weasels to collect and hiding them under a slate to give the camera time to react.  In late August a water shrew appeared and stole the mouse.  The mouse is as big as the shrew and the slate is much heavier.

As far as I can make out this was the first time a water shrew taking carrion had been recorded on video (ever, anywhere!).  The shrew was a daily visitor for almost a month and then disappeared.

End of year favourites - Stoats

These few days between Christmas and New Year are an opportunity to look back over the past 12 months and pick out a few favourite videos.  Stoats were regular visitors to the garden in the early part of the year but haven't been seen recently.  On one exciting day in March two stoats visited in the same morning only 10 minutes apart.  The second one was paler with partial ermine colouring and was noticeably smaller - the first was a male and the second female. Neither went into the box to trigger the inside camera but instead they both turned round in the entrance and came out again.  I think the male must have left a scent mark because the female was distracted by it as she came out.

I built what I call the weasel wall mainly with weasels in mind but I was very pleased when it was visited by a stoat.

Most times the stoats are almost too quick for the cameras.  The last video puts together a few very short clips of a stoat or stoats in slow motion.

The cameras haven't seen a stoat since April but I am hoping there will be more in 2025.

Herald

Not quite a herald angel but a beautiful moth I found flying around in the kitchen yesterday.  I think it had been hibernating in the garage under a workbench I brought into the kitchen and the warmth woke it up.  I took a photo before putting it back in the garage.  Merry Christmas.

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.