An update from OtterCam

I am determined to make the most of the opportunity presented by the otter cubs so I am experimenting with the trail cameras.  One new camera is a Woopeak TC22 which has a number of limitations but one or two good features.  One that I like is its wide-angle view.  I set it up with one of my Brownings so that they had the same viewpoint and made this video to compare the two.  The Woopeak produces a duller, less vibrant, less contrasty picture so I have tried to match that to the Browning in editing.  The video is from last month so the cubs were a bit smaller and for most of the time only two were in shot.

One big drawback of the Woopeak is its poor night-time performance and it is overexposed when multiple cameras are shining their infrared light.  The Brownings cope especially well.  In the first part of the next video two cameras are lighting the scene and when the otters reach the water several more join in giving a brightly lit view.

I have failed over several years to get good videos of otters underwater, especially in daylight. The wide angle has some promise and might have been even better on a sunny day.  Here is the mother, each time with only one of the cubs.

I have never seen an otter in a tree before but the dog otter turned up and climbed into the base of a tree to leave a scent mark.  The camera was set to watch the bank, not the tree, and all the action was in the top left corner.  It was early morning in poor light and the image is cropped so it is rather grainy but we can just see what he was up to.  I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that he had appeared with some wounds or injuries.  He doesn't seen troubled by them but the marks over his ribs are much more obvious here.  It is difficult to work out what might have caused them.  To me this looks here much less like wounds from a fight.

Finally another view of the family from a couple of nights ago.  This time all from one camera but taking advantage of the light from the others.  All the cubs were sticking close to mum this time.

Vandalism on OtterCam

The current group of cubs are the most boisterous I have seen, possibly because there are three of them.  They are full of curiosity, especially when it comes to trail cameras.  Here's what I am up against.

When I set up a camera the last thing I do is clean the lens.  Here's the first thing that happens next.

The trail cameras give us a remarkable insight into the otters' lives, something we could never see otherwise.  Here is the mother bringing in another fish.  The delay between disappearing from view and reappearing with a fish was 18 seconds.  She doesn't seem impressed with the cub's manners.

You'd think an otter would be pretty fearless as an apex predator, but not always.

The cubs are already spending less time close to their mother so it is harder to record them all in the frame at the same time, even though they are only about five months old.  I'll report back on what they get up to next. 

Fighting and grooming on OtterCam

Growing up as an otter cub looks to be such fun.  Two nights ago was by far the best fight (play fight) I have yet seen.  It went on for about 12 minutes and yielded over 100 videos on the several cameras.  Each camera will record for only 20 seconds at night and takes up to a second to restart so the frantic action is rather disjointed.  Add to that the otters constantly disappearing out of the frame and it is rather difficult to put it all together.  I spent all yesterday evening sorting through the videos.  This is not constant action but a few edited highlights from four cameras so you'll get the idea.  It started rather suddenly with two cubs fighting but the third cub and then mother joined in and the action was crazy.

Two nights before that they were all much more relaxed.  I have seen mutual grooming before but never like this.   Otters spend a lot of time out of the water looking after their fur but they also seem to get a lot of pleasure from grooming each other.  

Here is a short version of the video. 

If you have time this is most of the whole episode (over three minutes).  It is quite relaxing to watch as well.  The mother seemed to be very thirsty and several times took a drink.

The otters are producing so much video at present that I can barely keep up.  I already have more and will post it soon.

The dog otter

The dog otter doesn't get much of a look in on the blog now that the triplets are here but he is still around.  He takes no part in bringing up the cubs but he must be aware of them, by sound and scent at least.  To bring you up to date here are a few of his recent videos.  Before the rain in the past couple of weeks he was resting when he was disturbed by a moorhen.

And we had one brief snowfall when he put in an appearance.

One reason he stays around is that the living is easy.

A couple of nights ago he had two fresh wounds on his left flank.  I haven't edited this one seamlessly but I have doubled up the views from the first two cameras.   It looks quite superficial and he doesn't seem limited but I expect he was in a fight - perhaps to defend his territory although I haven't seen a strange otter around on the cameras.  I'll look out for him in the coming days.

The mother and cubs are producing more videos almost every day so there will be more from them soon.