OtterCam in January

Otters live in a world it is difficult for us to imagine.  Apart from the cubs being with their mother, otters live mostly solitary lives.  Their sense of smell is very acute and they communicate by leaving spraint, urine or anal jelly to advertise their presence and condition.  The cubs are already doing the same.  There are popular scent-marking spots in front of my cameras, at the water's edge and up the bank.  In the first video the mother led the cubs up the bank, sniffing as they went.  When they returned the mother left a message, as did one of the cubs a little lower down.  Three hours later the dog otter turned up to sniff the messages intently before leaving his own.  (The flickering light is caused by a failing battery in another camera in the tree on the right.)  Another two hours later, in daylight, mother and one cub went by, sniffing and scent-marking again.

It is hard enough at the best of times to decide where to put the trail cameras but once the lake freezes it becomes even more hit-and-miss.  This next video is a case of what might have been, with most of the action frustratingly out of shot.  It starts at the end of the video above - the female otter came down the bank with one cub, both looking wonderfully warm and fluffy in the cold.  The mother then caught a fish in a hole in the ice, just out of view.  She gave it to the cub to eat, just after the second one came rushing down.  It's a bit fragmented but I have pieced together what I can of the action.

It is interesting that one cub is already becoming very independent, often lagging behind.  If my calculations are correct the cubs are about 29 weeks old in these videos so they still have a lot to learn and will be with their mother for some while yet.  I'll keep trying to point the cameras in the right directions.

A wasp nest in the roof

All summer and autumn there were wasps flying in under the eaves, often more than 100 per minute, so I knew the nest would be big.  Because a few wasps were still active in early December I waited until after a cold snap before going up to investigate.  My roof is low and cramped and the nest was built around the rafters so it wasn't going to come out in one piece. This is how it looked before I started.

This is the outer insulation layer.  You can see here how at one point the wasps must have changed to a different source of wood.  I think the grey comes from my shed!

This shows a bit of the comb before I removed the main body of the nest.

And this is what it looks like once it is out, all made of paper.  The combs are single-sided and horizontal with the cells opening downwards.  This was a big nest with eight storeys of comb.

The comb is surrounded by a thick layer of very fragile insulation.

There were a few dead wasps and from looking at them I think they are common wasps (Vespula vulgaris).   The nest would be a success if it produced only a couple of queens surviving the winter to found new colonies next season.  It seems an enormous enterprise to achieve that, compared with the Saxon wasps (Dolichovespula saxonica) that were in the roof of my bee house in the summer.

A ladybird twitch

I don't see myself as a twitcher but this was an opportunity too good to miss.  When I heard that a very rare ladybird had been found in a churchyard not far from here I had to take a look.  This is Oenopia conglobata, common enough in Southern Europe and North Africa but only the third record ever for the UK.  It has no common English name but its German common name translates as Poplar Ladybird.

The first UK record was in 2014 at Flamborough Head, a place for seeing rare vagrant birds and dragonflies, so that one may well have flown over from Europe.  The second record was in Stirlingshire in 2021, found in a kitchen and presumably brought in on imported plant material. This latest find has obviously been here for some time as it was hibernating on a gravestone. There are supermarkets and garden centres nearby so the most likely route in would have been on imported plants.

Oenopia conglobata is listed in the back of Helen Roy's book amongst "potential new species". I went round the churchyard and had a very careful look at all the Harlequin Ladybirds but couldn't see another Oenopia conglobata.  It would be nice to think this very attractive pink ladybird will eventually join our list of native species.

Sparrowhawk news

This winter's sparrowhawk is a juvenile.  It is the eighth winter in a row in which a male sparrowhawk has come to sit on this perch outside my window.  In early autumn I got a glimpse and one photo of an adult but ever since it has been this first-winter bird.  To start with he was playing hard to get by sitting in the wrong place.

I also saw him under a blackcurrant bush with a kill.

I knew he had been here because on some days almost no sunflower seed was taken from the feeder.  Eventually I was watching at the right time and he sat for quite a while, preening, stretching and fluffing up his feathers.

On another day the sparrowhawk took a kill up to the perch to eat - something I haven't seen before.  I expect it was trying to protect it from a magpie.

Strange tracks

Every time I pass the sluice gate I check for tracks to see if an otter has been by.  The orange algae, or whatever it is, regrows in 24 hours or so and wipes out older tracks.  As well as otter prints there are often water rail and moorhen prints and scrape marks from floating branches but on one occasion several weeks ago there were some very strange marks.  They appeared when the water was very shallow and whatever made them didn't trigger the trail camera.

In the photo above you can see otter prints near the camera and three sets of wiggly lines on the far side, possibly or perhaps not related to the slightly diagonal lines.  Here is a closer view.

I have kept a close eye out but the marks haven't reappeared, perhaps because of the prolonged heavy rain which has meant the water is much deeper.  I haven't been able to work out what has produced these marks.  My best wild guess is an eel, swimming upstream against the current in very shallow water but that may be way off and searching online produces no useful result.  If you know, or can make a better guess, please leave a comment.

My meadow year

I haven't written a post about the meadow on this blog before, although it has been mentioned now and then.  I started off by giving up mowing part way through 2019 to see what happened and in the four years since I have cut it once a year in September.  It is about 30m by 20m and is in sun for most of the day.  It has several standing dead and almost dead sycamores and contains a few birches and two large Turkey oaks.  To the north is a small copse of mostly mature sycamores which is left wild and brambly with lots of log piles.

In the first winter I sowed seed of various wild flowers but it was difficult for them to compete with the grass.  Since then I have put in a lot of yellow rattle and used plugs of wild flowers which are becoming established - many of which I raised myself from seed.  In early 2022 I dug a pond so that has now had its second season.

The meadow is wonderful to look at but I find it very hard to photograph.  I have ended up using the phone most of the time and reserving the cameras for close ups.  Here are some phone views from this past year, roughly in date order.

And a few pictures of some of the inhabitants.  There are plenty of field voles as well, although I don't have any photos.  A kestrel sits on top of the dead trees to watch for them and I expect they are also one reason why the weasels are here.

The meadow and the pond are a delight and are full of life throughout spring, summer and autumn.  I plan to keep adding to the flowers and may even put in second pond.  I'll try harder with photos in 2024 and will aim to post pictures regularly here.