New triplets on OtterCam

Well Mrs Otter certainly kept me guessing.  Her previous cubs moved on at the beginning of May and straight away she was courting the dog otter.  Given that an otter's gestation is 63 days I was assuming that new cubs would be born around the second week of July and would first appear about now.  But several things made me doubt it.  Videos showed no obvious sign of pregnancy and she and the dog otter were going around together for weeks when courtship is said to last 3-4 days.  And three weeks after she should have given birth there was no sign that she was feeding young.  Then about three weeks ago she appeared with an obviously swollen belly so I thought that might be pregnancy rather than lactation.  But then bang on cue last Friday she appeared with triplets, about 16 weeks old.

Going in to check the cameras the day before I had heard a couple of whistles from a cub only a few yards away in the reeds and a low-pitched mewing answer from the mother.  They obviously knew I was there and never came into view but it was an exciting encounter.

Heavy rain last week flooded the old bridge and the cameras there caught the family splashing across in daylight.

The next sighting of the family was going down the bank, turning and coming back up and then going back down again, the cubs mostly sticking very close to mother although one was lagging behind at the end.

I am trying out a new trail camera, a Woopeak TC22.  It has a number of limitations (more on that another time) and it misses a lot of things but two advantages are a wide-angle view and the ability to record colour video in low light.  Here is how it saw the same episode.  It also recorded for long enough to pick up the laggard.

The following morning the cameras saw a cub on its own, temporarily separated from the others and whistling for its mother.  I was pleased to see it was back with the family by yesterday morning.

This is only the second time in eight sets of otter cubs over nearly seven years that I have seen triplets.  Last time, in late 2022, one cub was washed away in a flood when they were still quite small and only two survived.

Unlike other mammals otters are non-seasonal breeders and will have young at any time of year so these cubs will be around until late spring next year.  I hope to be able to share many more videos in the coming weeks and months.

Stoat and weasel in the camera box

The camera box in the garden is generally not baited but relies on the animals' curiosity to tempt them in.  It also attracts lots of mice, voles and shrews and so will smell of prey.  Weasels are usually happy to explore the box but stoats are rare visitors.  The female stoat who has been hanging around the garden for a while recently made two visits to the box.

There were also two very brief sightings of a weasel running through so I was tempted to put in a mouse from a trap in the roof, hoping the weasel might take it.  But the stoat got there first.  It was interesting that, having found it, the stoat checked the coast was clear before taking the mouse away, something that weasels do regularly.  Unfortunately the camera was in between its maximum 20s night-time recordings when the stoat came back to pick up the mouse.  The banging in the background is the sound of fireworks.

I put in another mouse and this time there was a rare night-time visit from a weasel but it didn't take the mouse, probably because it was still frozen.

Before the weasel had time to change its mind the stoat was there early the next morning and did take the mouse.  It was back six minutes later to check it hadn't missed another one.

The next bait was a bank vole and this was taken by the weasel.  Again she checked the coast was clear before running off with her prize.

I have plenty more mice in the freezer so it will be interesting to see if these two become regulars.

WaterRailCam

This blog has been taken over by mustelids recently so it is time for something different, although these pictures were recorded on cameras looking for otters.  The water rail (Rallus aquaticus) has a reputation for being a shy bird but it isn't shy when it thinks no-one is looking.  It is the most frequent non-target bird on this camera, appearing several times a day.

Most often the water rail just runs across the bridge but quite frequently it also does a dance on tip-toe with much flapping of its wings.  I don't know if this is a display or just for exercise, probably the former.  Here are a few examples.

Wikipedia says water rails mostly eat animals such as worms, slugs, leeches, spiders and insects.  They will also take small vertebrates such as amphibians and fish.  The cameras have twice recently seen a water rail carrying prey - first a fish and then a newt in the video, an observation that would be near impossible without the trail camera.

Because of their secretive behaviour water rails are very difficult birds to census.  My cameras suggest that locally at least they are doing very well.

StoatCam in October

Since I first spotted the stoat at the beginning of the month I have had at least three trail cameras set in the garden to try to keep an eye on it.  There have been 33 recordings, up to 12 in 24 hours and at other times none for a week.  Most have been under the dead sycamore but it has also showed up on the "weasel wall".  (Interestingly the cameras haven't recorded a weasel since the stoat arrived.).  Here's a slightly misted-up view with the dead tree in the foreground, the weasel wall behind at the edge of the meadow and the copse behind that.

I don't think the stoat lives here but it certainly has a couple of hideouts - under the tree and in the wall.  Twice it has been carrying food.  The first time in daylight it brought a piece of what may be rabbit or possibly squirrel.  It took it underground for a few seconds and then brought it out again and ran off.  Eight days later the stoat emerged from the hole with something similar at night (I hope it wasn't the same piece).  It wasn't seen going in but there is another entrance round the back out of view.

There have been a couple of other night-time recordings, something I have only ever seen once with a weasel.  I think stoats have less to fear from owls and are more confident to be out in the dark.

On one intriguing occasion the stoat jumped up onto the wall to look at something behind in the copse.  Then it jumped down and ran under the camera.  Ten seconds later (I have trimmed the gap) a squirrel appeared from behind the camera and the stoat was already back on the wall, watching (red arrow on the photo).  After a few seconds it raced after the squirrel and disappeared out of view.  It didn't return to any of the cameras so I'll never know what happened next.  Squirrels are pretty fast as well and are better at climbing trees than are stoats.

The last video shows the stoat on the wall.  As gardens go I think this is pretty reasonable habitat for a stoat.  Let's hope it sticks around into next year.

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.