Mrs Otter goes fishing

The mother otter is busy fishing for four but seems to have no difficulty finding enough for them all to eat.  The first video starts with mother on the bank with a fish and the cubs all raced to get it.  After a tussle one succeeded and the other two followed mother back into the water.  When she returned with a second fish only one cub was around to take it.  That left one hungry cub waiting by the water's edge.  It was probably worth the wait because the third fish was the biggest.  All this action took only three minutes.

When the mother brings a fish (still alive) she doesn't give it to a cub but usually holds it on the ground until one of them takes it.  Although there may be a fight for possession of the fish, once one cub has it the others seem to accept it and wait for another, presumably confident that their turn will come.  If no cub arrives to take the fish she will eat it herself.  She also eats all the tails etc that they leave.

As the light improved the camera changed to colour video and the fish kept coming.  Mother brought in a roach and one cub claimed it.  Another discovered a left-over tail and decided to eat that.

Eventually the cubs were full and they used the fish to practice catching them.  This cub repeatedly took its fish back into the water to "catch" it over a period of eight minutes before taking it out of view.  I presume it was eventually eaten.  This is very interesting behaviour in cubs only about 18 weeks old and seems to be spontaneous.

Another fish was a perch, also used for catching practice.

Eventually the family moved on after 80 minutes in front of the cameras and in that time the mother caught at least 13 fish.  

On another morning the otter went fishing on her own, presumably having left the cubs in a safe place.  She went past this camera four times, each time returning with a good-sized roach between 30 seconds and five minutes later.

I expect the mother will have to work even harder for the next several weeks until the cubs start catching fish for real.