I have a series of trail cameras set up both on my land and at a local nature reserve. I have spent time wandering off of main tracks. looking for areas that look like they might be good monitoring sites. Trail cams are a fab way of monitoring such sites. They save video footage onto an SD card and I go back to them every week, incorporating collection as part of a dog walk!
This morning, I returned to a site that I have been monitoring for a few months as I thought the holes there looked interesting. I buried a few peanuts in front of the camera this time, to see if I could get a better look of any creatures that stopped by.
I wasn't surprised to see the fox soon sniffed out the stash.....
The badger also showed a few times.... and had a good sniff of the camera!
When I downloaded this clip, I nearly fell off my chair! I couldn't believe what I was seeing and watched it several times! This particular spot is nowhere near a main river and even smaller water courses are probably over a mile away. This clip shows an otter walking past!
I contacted my local reserve manager to let her know. she was equally surprised especially as otter have not been recorded on the reserve before. I am very pleased to have captured it! It looks to be in good condition. I wonder where it had come from and where it was heading? I wonder if I'll ever capture such a clip again. Safe to say that the trail cam will remain there for a while!
It's fantastic to know otters are around.... I just need to find out more and see if I can find any evidence of them around local waterways and get some more trail cams out!!