Birds on OtterCam

I rarely set my trail cameras for pictures of birds but birds trigger more recordings than mammals.  Most of the mammals are rats and mice and most of the birds are wood pigeons and moorhens but sometimes it is something more interesting.  Several Eurasian bitterns have been in Gosforth Nature Reserve all winter and at least one is still there - it is rarely seen but constantly heard as its booming call echoes through the reeds.  This one did me the honour of walking past my camera.

Another surprise was a cormorant, a common sight on the lake but not previously within range of a trail camera.

Next two little brown jobs.  Reed buntings are common enough and the singing males are very visible in spring.  Females are less showy but still very attractive and, like the bittern, beautifully camouflaged for life in the reeds.  Cetti's warblers are easily heard but rarely seen, which is a pity as they are also very attractive little birds.

Common birds tend to get overlooked but the trail cameras can give us an intimate view.  Here are a few recent ones that caught my eye.

Finally another surprise - a tawny owl trying to catch a rat.  Perhaps a bit optimistic but it may have misjudged the size of its prey in the dark.  The rat lived to tell the tale.

It's a smelly old world

We humans have a poorly developed sense of smell so it is difficult for us to appreciate how important it is for most other mammals.  Mustelids, in particular, use scent to communicate with others of their kind, marking their territories and advertising their presence and breeding condition.  With the exception of badgers, female and male mustelids lead separate lives, usually meeting only for courtship and mating.  As they have large territories, are thinly spread across the landscape and are mainly active at night, scent-marking is a vital way for them to tell who is about and who is available.

Otter cubs are already leaving their own scent marks and sniffing others by the time they first appear on the cameras at three or four months of age.  The first video, from late 2024, shows two young otter cubs exploring their world, much more interested in the scents than the sights or sounds.

Otters use spraint (otter poo), urine or anal jelly to leave scent marks, choosing prominent features such as rocks and grass tussocks.  This is a new spot I have only just discovered.  The very first night after I set up a camera an otter turned up.

The next video shows a popular sprainting spot which is very regularly visited by the dog otter and (separately) by the mother and cubs - there is fresh spraint almost every time I look.  It was interesting to see it marked by a badger as well on this occasion - a behaviour known as "musking".

Badgers' family dynamics are rather different from otters' but they use latrines to mark their territories and they scent-mark each other to reinforce the clan smell and maintain family bonds. Here's an example with a mother repeatedly making sure her cub smells like the rest of the family, using sub caudal glands under her tail - a process called "allomarking".

Polecats are notoriously smelly to our sensibilities (another name is foulmart) but it obviously works for them.  The next video shows a polecat using urine, scat and body rubbing to advertise its presence and sniffing to see who else has been around.

The smaller mustelids are the more elusive they become.  Tracking weasels and stoats is very difficult so less is known about their territorial behaviour.  Field signs are usually very few but this weasel left a message inside my camera box.  It was also scent marking by rubbing its body along the entrance pipe as it went in and out, something that happens nearly every time.

OtterCam on Channel 5

Oh dear.  It's happened again.  On Channel 5 last night.  People like otters and television people like to show pictures of otters but why they also need a mumbling old man as well is beyond me. My main aim in making all my otter videos is to be able to share them so of course I said yes but it wasn't a comfortable experience.  After Winterwatch a year ago I was hoping it would be better - at least I didn't wear my dreadful old hat this time. 

The approach came from Lonesome Pine Productions, an independent TV production company based in Newcastle commissioned by Channel 5.  The team above (R-L) was Simon Glass, who was also cameraman for Winterwatch (but soundman as well this time), Alan Fairholm, producer, and Bunny, assistant producer.  Brian Rutter took the photos in this post.

Most of the time all I had to do was walk towards tha camera (I am quite good at that bit).

Simon also took a lot of drone footage, much of it general views of the reserve and some of me walking up and down (again).

The interview is much harder than it looks, mostly because I talk too much.  The editors need very short sentences so they can cut up the copy more easily whereas I tend to talk in paragraphs.  Added to that I am always thinking three sentences ahead so I don't lose my thread but then I do.  Fortunately very little of what we recorded was used in the end.  (If you think it was bad you should see what they left out!)

The programme was no 24 in a series of 40 on Channel 5 called Love Nature.  If you want to watch it you can see it on the Channel 5 website here.  I suppose if I got more practice at speaking in front of the camera I would get better at it but I hope that's my television career over.

The trail camera footage they used was some I have shown before in posts here and here.    To bring you up to date here is a brief clip of the family last Sunday.  You'll see the cub with the poorly leg is still limping but is able to keep up with the others.

Adders

The weather in the North East has been resolutely depressing so far this year, often wet and nearly always cloudy.  I guessed the snakes would be fed up with it as well so spotting sunshine in the forecast on Tuesday I headed north hoping they would be out basking.

This early in the season you would expect that most of the snakes would be males (they emerge from hibernation earlier) but the first one I saw was large and brown, so more likely to be a female.

The snakes hadn't yet shed their old skins so the males were looking rather dowdy.  Once they have moulted they will be gleaming black and silver but this is how they are now.

Here's another with a slightly greenish tinge.

I read that adders don't eat after emerging from hibernation until they have shed their skins but this one has a suspicious looking bulge which might suggest it had a quick snack.

While I watched it was tasting the air with its tongue.

The snakes spent an hour or two sunbathing, readjusting their coils every now and then, before slithering back into the undergrowth.

The site I visit is getting more overgrown each year.  The snakes don't seem to mind but it makes it harder to get a clear view for a photo.

Grooming and suckling on OtterCam

This is amazing.  In seven years of watching otters on my trail cameras I had never seen a cub being suckled until just over a week ago.  And now it has happened again - twice, and with two different cubs.  The cubs are now seven and a half months old, nearly full grown, and they should be independent in perhaps about 10 weeks time.  Last time the cub with a foot injury was the one suckling and I wondered if it might be for comfort.  The next time it was the injured cub again and I think mother was more interested in grooming herself and the cub.

The latest episode was with one of the others.  Mother had been grooming herself for about a minute before the cub turned up and the grooming and suckling went on for another two minutes.

The injured cub sticks closer to the mother than the other two who are noticeably more independent.  It will be fascinating to see how things develop over the next few weeks.

An injured cub on OtterCam

I feared the worst at one stage but this may not turn out as badly as I thought.  The smallest cub, presumably female, was limping badly two weeks ago with an injury to its right back leg or foot. In the first video you can see it lagging behind the others, wanting to join in the play fight and then getting upset when it all got a bit boisterous and one of them presumably trod on its poorly foot.

Two days later the cub appeared on the cameras on its own and could barely drag itself up the bank - a video distressing to watch that I won't post here.  I thought if it didn't manage to rejoin the mother and the others and couldn't catch its own food it probably wouldn't survive.  Later that night there was a video of mother with the two fit cubs and no sign of the third.

Since then, however, it has rejoined mother and at least one of the others on the videos and seems to be managing, although it is still limping badly.  Here is the cub with mother and one of the others.  The first camera was very fogged up.

And then something I have never seen before.  Otter cubs are weaned by 14 weeks of age and these three are now seven months old and yet mother was letting the injured cub suckle. Perhaps she senses the cub's distress and this was for comfort rather than sustenance.

Some good news is that the dog otter has made a fairly good recovery from his leg injury although it has taken two months.  Let's hope the cub does the same.

Stoats and weasels

I rarely see a stoat or a weasel in the garden but I now have three trail cameras set up to look out for them, one on my "weasel wall", one in a camera box and a third watching the base of a dead sycamore and adjacent low wall.  Since the start of the year stoat visits have been regular but fleeting, enough to show there is one around but not enough to suggest it lives here.  It doesn't go into the camera box but appears on the other two cameras.  Last week it briefly checked the base of the dead sycamore and then ran up the tree, disappearing from view - something I have seen several times before.  This time, however, it came back down after only 15 seconds carrying prey, identifiable as a vole in slow motion.  There is an old starling nest hole about 3m up the tree which is probably where the vole was, but why and how it got there, and how the stoat knew, is mystery to me.

Not to be outdone a weasel appeared on the same camera, checking on a delivery van before running towards the camera.

Most of the stoat recordings are on the wall.  Here is one doing what stoats do, although quite why is another mystery.

Although weasel visits are less common, one also showed up on the wall last week, not quite as frantic as the stoat.

My hope is that one of these will decide that the wall is a good place to make a nest and raise young.

Puzzles on OtterCam

I watch a lot of otter videos and most times I can understand the behaviour but this episode has me puzzled.  The cub is obviously in mother's bad books, perhaps because of something it said or did, and it seems to be being disciplined in some way.  Perhaps the mother didn't want to be followed but, if so, she gave in in the end.  I don't think I have heard this chittering sound from a cub before, only from an adult female when courting.

The dog otter has been carrying an injury for the last few weeks.  I first noticed it seven weeks ago, having not seen him on camera for a couple of weeks before that.  He was unable to put his left hind foot to the ground and was hobbling about on three legs.  There were no signs of wounds apart from a new scratch on his nose - so a fight injury is a possibility but this would be an odd one.  It is intriguing that there were what looked like wounds on a dog otter in early December.

From the look of it I first wondered if his leg was broken or dislocated but when he rolled around he didn't seem to be in any discomfort, although his leg was flopping in a very unnatural position. Over the weeks it has gradually improved as you'll see from the video but he is still limping.  I guess we'll never know the cause and I can't even be sure it is the same dog otter as before. There may have been a coup.

I only just missed a very close encounter last week.  Only three minutes after I left this character turned up to sniff the cameras, perhaps to check it had been me.  Maybe next time I'll wait a few minutes in case it happens again.

TrailCam Trailer

I notice that all four blog posts in January were on mustelids - polecat, weasel, stoat and otter, so it's time for something different.

I have a lot of trail camera wildlife videos.  They get seen transiently by people on this blog, or the NHSN blog, or on Winterwatch etc, or in Facebook groups but then don't get seen again so I have been wondering if there is anything else to be done with them.  I have easily enough to make a film on otters, or just on wildlife generally, but I lack the script-writing and video editing skills.  As an exercise I made a short trailer to showcase some of the things trail cameras can do - the photo above shows the production process.  When I show videos to people (which is often!) they seem surprised by the quality and the colours, perhaps expecting blurry black and white images, like mine were 10 years ago.  So here is a taste of what trail cameras can do.  I hope you enjoy it.  If you have ideas about what else to do please leave a comment.

The otters have a takeaway

The cubs are over six months old now and are growing fast but they still rely on their mother to catch their food.  As they become more independent they are less often all three close by their mother's side so when she catches a fish there is often no competition for it.  Here one of the cubs shows how to eat a raw fish in 40 seconds, mostly without using its paws.

Otters mainly eat fish of course, but being carnivores they also will be happy with amphibians, crustaceans, small mammals and birds.  Ducklings and other young birds are a delicacy in springtime but occasionally there is the opportunity of something bigger.  One night last week the mother went quickly past one of the cameras with two cubs in very close attendance and something in her mouth.  The view is brief and the other cameras missed it but I worked out she had caught a drake mallard.

By the time they reached the next camera she still had the duck and wasn't letting go. Unfortunately she then took it away as I would have loved to see how she dealt with it.  All three cubs followed, hoping for a share of the spoils.  (The moaning sound is from the mother otter, not the duck!)

The cubs will have to work on their fishing skills before they become independent in a few months’ time but I expect it will be some time before they can catch a duck.

News from StoatCam

Mustelids seem to be taking over the blog and this week there is more news of stoats in the garden.  After all the excitement in October and November it went a bit quiet and almost all my cameras were watching otters, polecats and weasels elsewhere.  The Camtraptions camera wasn't contributing much so I brought it home and set it to watch the weasel wall.  And straightaway there were stoats.  The videos from this camera aren't great and this is cropped as well so it's rather grainy but you can see what is going on.  The two clips in this video were only a minute apart but I am pretty sure there were two stoats - larger and smaller so male and female.  The second one is a bit farther away from the camera so it is difficult to be sure but see what you think.

Then the female went through the camera box a few metres away.  I have edited it at half speed to give a better look as she rushed through.

A few days later a stoat went through so fast that there was only a glimpse of its tail on the first frame.  However the tail is longer than the female's tail (she's on the left here) so again I think there is also a male around although I don't yet have a video of two together.

I brought a Browning camera back here to get better pictures and over the past week there have been stoat videos every day, up to 10 in a day.  Most of the activity is on the wall but also under the dead sycamore where I first saw a stoat last October.  I think there has occasionally been a larger (∴ male) stoat but it is mostly a female.  It is also encouraging that the female is defending the wall against squirrels, as in this video.  She must like it here.

Then I moved the camera a bit closer and you'll see that the stoat knows it is being watched. Notice also that it looks rather pale so although we aren't far enough north to expect a full ermine I wonder if this is a partial winter coat.  

Two years ago I did get video of male and female stoats only 10 minutes apart and that female had white legs and a white tail.  I'll see if I can spare another one or two otter cameras to keep an eye on the stoats.  I'll post more news when I have it.

Breakdancing on WeaselCam

WeaselCam has been away on tour again, back to Elemore Park in County Durham.  This was where we saw the Greater White-toothed Shrew but because it is a nature reserve evolved from a municipal golf course it has a lot of grass, therefore a lot of field voles, and therefore a lot of weasels.  The camera was there throughout December and recorded four weasel visits.  The box probably smells of mice and voles (which also visit) so the weasel is searching out of curiosity in case there might be something to eat.  As far as I can tell from the gular (under chin) spots it was always the same one and it may even be the same one as last time.  Here is what it got up to. On the first video there was background noise from earthmoving machinery and traffic.

The second time the weasel was bouncing around even more, a bit like the "death dance" of a stoat, which is said to be a way of hypnotising its prey.

Here is an excerpt from the same video, at half speed to show more clearly some of its breakdancing moves.

Each time the weasel visited it was around for two or three minutes.  You can see the advantage of my design of camera box, with a view down one of the entrance pipes, as we can see the weasel coming in and out and going back to check the entrance.

On the last visit the weasel was banging around behind the camera.  I think it must have been practising its dance moves as there is nothing round the back, just an empty space.  Perhaps I need another camera pointing backwards to see what is going on.

The camera is still in place, hoping to record more shrew activity, but I expect we'll also see more of the weasel.

PolecatCam in colour

I have been experimenting with a new trail camera.  Until now I have been using almost exclusively Browning cameras but the current HP5 is now looking a bit limited.  The new one is a Camtraptions Trail Camera and it also has several limitations (more on that another time) but what intrigued me was its ability to record colour video at night using white light LEDs. Camtraptions are mainly known for their high-end camera trap accessories used with DSLR cameras so I think this is a new(ish) development for them.

As the opportunity was there I first used the camera for a polecat video without having been able to try it out at home.  I put on a +1.25 dioptre close-focus lens which would have been right for a Browning but which in retrospect was a bit too strong here.  I took along a hollow log, as I had used for pine martens a couple of years ago, and hoped the polecat would go through it heading towards the camera rather than away from it.  It did both and also climbed over the top, mainly out of view, probably just exploring the log because it was new.  It recorded several clips, mostly on the first night, and this was the best bit.

I am intrigued that the polecat (and wood mice, domestic cats, and roe deer), showed no reaction to the bright white lights switching on as recording started.  It even came right up to the camera to sniff it.

The tree stump is an obvious landmark and the polecat is a regular visitor.  Polecats are not really territorial in that they don't defend a territory against other polecats but they are thinly spread across the landscape so they need to know who's around if they are to find a mate.  The scent-marking is a way of advertising your presence and checking on the neighbours.

We moved the camera box to a slightly different position and the polecat came to check it out again.  Despite being a big animal in a small space it was careful not to knock the camera.

There were several other visitors to the box.  Here are some of them, the last of which was rather clumsy.

Once again I am indebted  to Jane and Gareth Hughes for allowing me to put the cameras on their land.  The cameras have been redeployed for the time being but we may have another look for polecats later in the year.