An update from OtterCam

I don't see otters when I go in to check my trail cameras but I sometimes wonder if they see me. In the past I have had an otter recording only a couple of minutes before I arrived.  This time the otter turned up 20 minutes after I left.  I wonder if it had been waiting until the coast was clear. You will have guessed that the photo at the top is a composite but it does give an opportunity to show the size of a female otter.  Here's the video.

The female and the dog otter are still appearing on the cameras regularly.  Here they are visiting a popular scent-marking spot two hours apart earlier this week.

It isn't always easy to judge the size of an individual otter on the trail cameras, especially at night, but here is a direct comparison between the dog (top) and female (below) from the video.

Two more views of the female from the same video.  After all the excitement of courtship in early May I had hoped new cubs might be born in July and might appear about now.  However, her shape here suggests she is pregnant, in which case we won't see the cubs out and about until next year.  I sent the photos to Vivien Kent, our local otter expert, and she agrees the otter looks pregnant.  It may be that a previous pregnancy didn't go well or I suppose this could even be a different female.  Whatever the explanation I suspect we won't now see cubs for another three or four months.

I have had several recent recordings of the dog rolling and grooming on the old bridge.  This seems to be one of his favourite spots.

And here he is again.

I am checking the cameras every three or four days at the moment.  Whenever the new cubs appear you will be the first to know.

PolecatCam

The polecat is one of the North East's rarest and most elusive mammals.  And after the excitement of the greater white-toothed shrew a few weeks ago here is another new mammal on my trail cameras.  Shy and mostly nocturnal in habit, the polecat is smaller than a domestic cat and very distinctive in appearance with dark fur, paler underfur on the body which shows through, and a bandit mask of dark fur around the eyes.

Polecats are members of the Mustelid (weasel) family which also includes weasels. stoats, pine martens, badgers, otters and American mink. They were on the verge of extinction in England by the end of the 19th century, mainly because of persecution by gamekeepers, but in recent decades they have slowly been making a comeback.  They are now found (but rarely seen) across much of central and southern England but in the north east they are mainly confined the western parts of County Durham and Northumberland south of the Tyne.

I am indebted to Jane and Gareth Hughes for letting me set trail cameras on their land in Allendale.  The first video shows a polecat exploring the camera box on the first night.

The polecat's scientific name (Mustela putorius) gives a clue to its notorious smelliness (another name is foul mart).  I suspect this one left a scent mark in the box because nothing else visited for eight days.  Then a vole came in but it was ten days before the first mouse - normally the box is a favourite with wood mice from the word go.  Another of the cameras did catch the polecat leaving a scent mark elsewhere.

The next videos show a polecat on the move, exploring by scent in the dark.

The last of my videos shows the polecat having a good scratch.

Polecats hunt and eat rabbits but will also take rats, other small mammals, birds and amphibians.  They prefer rural lowland areas and will often make a den in a rabbit burrow in summer, sometimes moving into farm buildings in winter.  They mate in late winter and the kits are born in late spring and raised solely by their mother.

I am grateful to Maureen and Alistair Stevens who have kindly allowed me to share their delightful trail camera recording of a family of young polecats in their barn in Hexhamshire in daylight.  This video has no sound.

The cameras in Allendale are still in position so I hope to have more pictures of this fascinating and elusive animal to share soon.

Meeting mustelids in the garden

I had a couple of amazing encounters in the garden in the last few days.  Only 15m from my front door I saw a pair of beady eyes watching me from the base of a dead sycamore.  The stoat ducked back in but reappeared several times without leaving the safety of the hole.  I managed a few short videos on the phone but the quality wasn't great so I set up a trail camera to keep watch.

The stoat reappeared 80 minutes later and did so repeatedly over the next hour and a half before running off.  It was very alert, very fast, and seemed very aware of the camera.

In the end I had about 10 minutes of video but these two excerpts give you a flavour.

I was fascinated to see how much time the stoat spent standing up to see better what was going on.  I am reminded that stoats were sentries when the weasels took over Toad Hall in Wind in the Willows.  This is E. H. Shepard's illustration.

A few days earlier I met a weasel.  I was about to close the gate when I saw a face at the entrance of my trail camera box, only 3m away.  The weasel saw me and ducked back into the box, only to reappear at the other entrance closer to me.  It stood watching, wondering what to do and like the stoat it stood on its hind legs to get a better view of me.  Then back in and through the box, out and across the roof back towards me.  The whole episode was repeated and it went through the box five times in a minute and a half before deciding to go off along the hedge.  All the time I hadn't moved and the weasel showed no fear.  There was no camera outside the box but this was the view from inside.  You can also hear it running across the roof.

There hasn't been much weasel activity recently so I hope the stoat sticks around and I'll have more videos to share.

September Ladybirds

Apart from the excitement of the Scarce 7-spot Ladybird and the Hieroglyphic Ladybird there were several other good finds last month.  The smallest ladybird I have seen, and the equal smallest anywhere at 1.1-1.5mm, was the appropriately named Dot Ladybird, another new species from my mother's garden in Northamptonshire.

 

Not quite as small but also black and hairy was a Forestier's Ladybird.

Closer to home I found another small black hairy one, a Scymnus nigrinus,

and another very small ladybird, a Scymnus suturalis,

Also several Adonis Ladybirds,

a 2-spot Ladybird form typica,

and the less common and more striking 2-spot f. sexpustulata.

Rather more camouflaged were a Larch Ladybird,

an 18-spot Ladybird,

and a Striped Ladybird.

Others were an Eyed Ladybird,

a Pine Ladybird,

and a Cream-spot Ladybird.

And finally more Hieroglyphic Ladybirds.  This one was in Elemore Park in Co Durham,

and a rare black form in Havannah, just down the road.

By next month all the ladybirds will be hibernating and attention will shift to overwintering sites such as gravestones.

Summer dragonflies

I don't take as many dragonfly photos these days, mainly because I already have good photos of the species I see regularly.  I do still take record shots to convince the county recorder when I submit records and I take a few if they would make an appealing picture.  2025 has been a good year for many insects, including dragonflies, and locally we have seen good numbers of previously rare species.  Here are some of my recent pictures.

Broad-bodied Chaser.  This was the first dragonfly I saw this year and features on the front cover of the latest edition of The NHSN Magazine.

Ruddy Darter.  This is an immature male and is fairly rare in Gosforth Nature Reserve (GNR).  I like the way the wings were in focus as well.

Emperor Dragonfly, the first time I have had a reasonable photo of one on the Hepple Estate but it was a bit too close to the background to be good.  This is a male.

Brown Hawker.  We had only one previous record of a male in GNR but there was lots of activity this year.  This is a male on patrol.

And a female ovipositing.  Females were observed on several occasion over six weeks so with luck we'll end up with a breeding population in the reserve.

Another species with only a single previous record in the reserve, a Black-tailed Skimmer.  This time we had multiple males and at least one ovipositing female.  This is a male.

A male Common Hawker, also from GNR.

And mating Common Hawkers from Cragside.

A male Golden-ringed Dragonfly from Hepple.

A female Black Darter, also from Hepple.

A male Small Red-eyed Damselfly in GNR.  This species first moved north of the River Tyne last year and our reserve has the most northerly UK record.

Finally another damselfly from GNR and a new species for me.  This is a male Willow Emerald Damselfly.  The reserve has the most northerly UK record for this one as well.

The dragonfly season will soon be over.  Let's hope next year is as good as this has been.

WeaselCam on tour

One of my WeaselCam boxes has just spent eight weeks in Elemore Park in Sunderland.  The main aim was to record the local weasels although I was also hoping the camera would also see the local Greater White Toothed Shrew -  a hope that was realised.  In the first two weeks there were only a few recordings - of shrews and voles and all in daytime.  In the following four weeks the camera recorded 300 wood mouse videos, 150 vole videos and three weasel videos but no shrews.  The pattern was similar in the last two weeks - lot of mice and voles but this time there were 11 weasel recordings, although still no shrews.

To start with the weasel was very wary and was reluctant to come right into the box.  

Then it got a bit more confident.

In the last two weeks it was in the box nearly every day.

It seemed fascinated by something behind the camera (there was nothing there) often staying for 30s at a time.  At times it was jumping around like a stoat, unfortunately mostly out of view.  Here are the best bits edited from the 11 recordings.

I think this is probably all the same female weasel although it is difficult to be sure as some of the views were fleeting.  The likelihood is that the box was in her territory and she certainly got more used to it with time.  My only disappointment is that the shrews didn't show after the first two weeks - perhaps they were put off by the smell of weasel (or perhaps the weasel had eaten them all!).  The camera box is off elsewhere for a while but we hope to return it to Elemore Park for more weasel and shrew recordings in the near future.