A new location for Camera 2 and more observations

The weather is still extremely mild at the moment. It feels more like spring than winter. The mild conditions have been good for birds and other wildlife. In stark contrast to last winter which is unusually harsh, this year food appears to be in good supply, plants are still green and actively growing and insects are in plentiful supply. Whether this is good for the otters or not its hard to say but my guess is that the warm conditions must make the exertion of hunting more bare able for them. Since otters must manage their body temperature carefully warm weather should - in theory - extend hunting hours somewhat. Of course with such mild weather we have considerable quantities of rain in the last few weeks. This brings its own problems for otters. Its important that they keep their fur in peak condition and need to dry out completely between hunting sessions to ensure they don't cool down too much. Consequently they may be less inclined to hunt for long periods during periods of prolonged rainfall. At the very least they will have to find shelter at regular intervals to allow them to keep warm and to dry out.

Following my success in capturing some footage of an otter on camera 1 which I had moved to a site underneath a small timber built footbridge I decided to reinstate the camera at the same spot but moved to a better position so that I can get a wider shot to see what the otter is doing under the bridge. Getting it into position was not easy though having to lay flat on a 2 inch piece of timber jutting out over the water and a large area of really deep mud which I could not get purchase on. Even in this precarious position, I still had to stretch to fit a screw in camera bracket into a large cross timber beneath the bridge. All-in-all it took me about 20 minutes to set the camera up so I hope it yields some good shots.

It struck me as interesting in the last Post that I captured the otter at the same location 2hrs:30mins apart. This might suggest that the otter is patroling quite a small area or is perhaps returning to a nearby holt or resting place following its hunting expedition down river. It will also be interesting to see if I capture any footage on Camera 2 which was left in its current, slightly exposed location monitoring activity on the sand bags.

I've also collected 3 new sprints for analysis and I'm planning to set up a new page to record my findings each time i collect a sprint and attempt to analyse the prey content. I'm also going to set up another new page to record all observations including spraining, video capture and footprints. I'll also record new sites as and when I discover them.