New areas to explore

The mild weather continues to lull everything into a false sense of security. Will winter ever make and appearance. We have barely seen a frost this winter and the grass continues to grow so it may be out with the mower soon.

Even the wildlife appears unusually excited for this time of year. Instead of conserving energy and keeping warm everything is acting as through spring has already sprung. The birds are gathering in groups to sing and chase one another through the hedgerows with large flocks of Blackbirds, Magpies, tits and finches all busily displaying to one another and enjoying the warm conditions.

Out on the still waterlogged meadows the herons still sit, their heads grumpily hunched into their shoulders. I saw around 5 in the same field this morning. Unlike earlier in the week the day started with a strong southwesterly wind and thick grey clouds. Day broke reuluctantly as the sun struggled to make any great impression of the heavy cloud layer.

I retrieved the memory card from the camera positioned underneath a small bridge where I first successfully captured footage of the otter. Sadly nothing at all captured this time. The other camera which is now focused on the concrete rock by another small footbridge is still in place and there was no sign of fresh spraint so I felt that camera be.

I checked the white sand bags and here there was fresh spraint so the otter has moved through this location recently. Moving on the the river channel by the Saxon church I checked the new sprinting site just below the road bridge. A reasonable fresh sprint is still visible on the rock in the river but there are no signs of fresh sprinting here either.

Moving further down river I checked out one of the other sprainting sites by the main river channel but much closer to the more urban area. Here there was a very small fresh spraint but blink and you would surely miss it.

Today I also checked out a completely new location. Basically i'm getting concerned that by sticking to such a small area close to home i'm limiting my options too much. Plus I have very limited access to much of the area that the otters frequent. As I mentioned before I have made enquiries to gain more access but even the local WildLife Trust weren't prepared to help out so I have to look further afield.

This has proved to be quite a good move. The new area I've selected is much easier to access and looks like ideal otter country. Open countryside with meandering channels criss-crossing meadow land with lots of waterside trees and thickets for cover and tall reeds along the river bank. This looks like the ideal sort of otter habitat. The channel is shallow with a stoney bottom in some placed but deeper and more silty in others. The banks of the river and shallow making it easy for otters to move in and out. On one side we have tall reeds and grasses on the other low cropped, tussocks of grass which the otters may like for sprinting.

An ideal otter habitat.

On closer examination of the right bank of the channel I became quite excited, it looked like there had been quite a lot of otter activity. Along just a sort stretch I located 4 good sprainting locations and evidence of a lot more activity besides.

According to many experts in the field when there are no good locations for sprinting to be had otters will make their own 'mound' out of dead grass or grass roots. Others see this form of activity as just a different sort of territory marking referred to as 'sign heaps' these are usually small mounds of sand, gravel, mud or vegetation and crowned with or without spraint. Sometimes these can be very large, sometimes very numerous. when the activity becomes very intense nobody seems able to offers much of an explanation as to why the otters do this. In this new location there is so much of this sort of activity going on that it demonstrates a considerable amount of industry on the part of the otter. Long my small stretch of stream these mounds can be found almost every 10 meters or so. Most look like mud scrapings but some are very distinct mounds. Some, but by no means all are anointed with spraint.

A classic otter 'sign heap' anointed with Spraint.

This 'sign heap' is a text book example and almost looks as if the otter has carefully lifted a small piece of turf with a spade, carefully turned it up-side-down and sprainted on it.

Not all the sprainting sites along this stretch of river look like this since there are other locations where the otters does not even try to make a heap. In another location the otter appears to have tramped on a nice wet muddy patch to make it good and flat then sprainted in the middle. Although this looks raised in the picture it isn't really and the otter has sprainted in the middle on top of some in situ weeds growing on the river bank. The thing I really like about this shot is the clear footprints all around this patch of mud which suggests the otter has spend time trampling it all down prior to sprainting. Its a shame the paw prints are not clearer since it it difficult to see the 5th toe but I think it is there.

A little further along the course of this stream I then came across a large area of Juncus influxes on the right bank of the stream through which there were numerous small tunnels leading to large areas off flattened grass along with some signs of scraping here and there. This very much looks like an area used by the otter for grooming. Otters don't just groom themselves by licking and nibbling their fur, they also need to dry the fur which they do by rolling and squirming about on the ground and rubbing against logs and vegetation. This would clearly account for the large areas of flattened grass in amongst the stiffer Hard reed stems.

A possible grooming site

So after a rather frustrating week what with one thing and another this new discovery is really exciting. I'll have to keep a close eye on this new location and see if I can identify any good locations to rig up a camera.

I did collect some spraint from this location so it will be interesting to see how this compares with samples i've taken further upstream.