Having been away for a night in Surrey I returned yesterday in time to position the infradred camera. The night was clear and frosty and as I arrived at around 1045 I could already see in the moonlight, signs of Otter. Was I too late for today, had all the activity at this site taken place, would I manage to record some film? I was soon to get the answers. I returned at around 9 this morning and I could see that there were new tracks and one set led right up to the camera and then past! I quickly retrieved the equipment and with a sense of excitement and an odd sense of trepidation, rushed home. I inserted the memory card in to the mac and opened the files to see what we had. I almost didn't want to look because I was fearful of disappointment. I immediately noticed that I had recorded 5 seperate 1 minute pieces of footage……. it was getting exciting now!  I started in reverse order. Clip 5 showed me switching everything off!  Clip 4 was filmed at 0715……. was this it?  I was almost trembling when I clicked on play……. disappointment!  There was nothing on this clip except a Black Headed Gull, obviously the culprit. Still, it proved the equipment was working. Clip 3 was blank which really disappointed me, what else could have fired it off at 0350?  So, when I put up clip 2, recorded at 0237, and pressed play I was hardly looking……… and there it was……… an Otter!  Success!!!!!!!!  As I have said so many times on the blog, I love it when a plan comes together, but this was/is really special and I hope you agree. It shows an Otter, dog or bitch? (if you know can you let me know), on top of this well used spraint site. She is seen scraping together even more and then she spends 5 seconds depositing her mark, then, has a little look around, and off she goes back in to the water. My plan now is to continue setting the camera and then see if there is a pattern of time when there is activity. 

 Oh, and just what did set the camera off at 0350? Well an Otter of course because in this clip there are fresh tracks, the ones I mentioned earlier. They are not on the 0237 clip. What happened here was an Otter managed to slink towards the camera and only at the last split second did the camera start to record, by which time the otter was now behind the camera and not in front!

The infrared camera trap is a Spy Point IR-A. Details can be seen  here at Sherwoods