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.