Otter Campsite

Otters were on the menu this weekend and when I told a friend I’d be joining in the big survey on the Dwyryd he replied that he’d been at a meeting in Porthmadog in March where the Welsh speech was being translated via headphones. In the middle of the speech several people left the room while he carried on listening. Much later over coffee one of the people who walked out asked him why he hadn’t bothered to go and see the otters. That bit of information had not been translated! Those that did go out witnessed an attack by a dog otter successfully defended by the mother protecting her young cubs in the harbour. What a magic moment that would have been to see.

After the Sunday breakfast briefing we split into groups and set off to our sections of the Dwyryd armed with empty bags for collecting spraint. Five of us had the section from the Maentwrog bridge up to Dol Moch bridge and during the day we bagged 25 samples which will be DNA analysed to potentially identify the sex and the individual otters operating on the Dwyryd.

The hot spot was the Llechrwd Campsite where the stream crossing underneath the main road meets the river; we collected 15 samples in this area. Three young lads camped at the junction of the stream with the river said they’d heard noises of rocks at night time. Maybe it was the otters. Just opposite was a large shelf beneath the bank going in about 4 or 5 feet with many spraints; a safe haven for resting up or feasting on fish.

We ate our picnic amongst the wild flowers and damselflies beside the river with a dipper bobbing up and down on the other side.  Sand Martins nest in the bank and, although we didn’t see any, there are occasional Kingfisher sightings.

What a beautiful camp site with wildlife on the doorstep. I think Dyfyrgi (otter) Campsite would make a much better name than Llechrwd Campsite.    

Here's Mary-Kate from the Snowdonia Society explaining the finer points of bagging the poo!
      

Holt Cuisine - food for posh otters

The Mammals in a Sustainable Environment project will be holding a 2-day otter diet workshop on the 18^th & 19^th February at Treborth Botanic Gardens, Bangor.

The purpose of the workshop is to analyse otter spraint collected along the north Wales coast to learn more about their diet and ecology. Training will be provided by local expert Rob Strachan, so if you would like to learn more about otter ecology, please get involved. All levels of experience welcome! 

The workshop will be free of charge, but places are limited so book early! Please contact Ceri Morris to book your place on 07881 850735 or email c.morris@ccw.gov.uk

The MISE project is part funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Ireland Wales Programme (INTERREG 4A).

Mammal Society – the day we went to Bangor

It’s normal to hold meetings in London but this autumn (17th November) the society experimented with collaborating on a regional seminar.  The venue was Bangor, ‘dinas dysgu’ or ‘city of learning’, in the Brambell Building with its natural history museum making an excellent area for serving refreshments. On the ground local organisation was by the Snowdonia Mammal Group and more than 120 people attended the conference from all over UK.  

Derek Yalden (President) gave the first talk, an update on our knowledge of brown hares and how they are faring. It seems not so well. Surveys at the beginning and end of the 1990s showed a disappointing decline despite the introduction of ‘set aside’. I think Derek said he used to see 2 or 3 a day on average in the 1980s but nowadays it’s down to just 1.

Our 2^nd speaker was Penny Lewns with a ‘reasons to be cheerful’ talk about badgers and an overview of the work she and her partner have done by way of badger mitigation. There were some interesting photos of artificial setts under construction with an analysis of how successful they had been.

Before our excellent lunch amongst the skeletons in the museum we split into 5 workshops and I joined the ‘wildlife film making’ workshop with Geoff Garside. There’s a lot more to it than point and click with a camcorder. I walked away feeling very inspired (brilliant footage of stoats playing on the Conwy estuary, more photogenic than meerkats!) but a bit in awe of how good you’ve got to be. The sad conclusion was the comparative lack of producer or investor  interest in UK as opposed to exotic species. I’m told the other workshops were also good.

The afternoon session was opened by Jack Grasse and his totally black slide – it had something to do with our collective knowledge of dormice not so long ago. It’s not just about surveying hazel nuts and broadleaf. Jack gave a graphic (great facial expressions) description of how to age an old nutshell. What do they eat in conifers? Is it sap and invertebrates? We just don’t know yet, but maybe the MISE project will help.

Anita Glover from Leeds University described the arrival of Alcathoe’s Bat in the UK. In April 2010 it was confirmed in Sussex and 350 km away in Yorkshire. It was first described in Greece in 2001. Alcathoe? She was a young woman in Greek mythology who ... ‘while the other women and maidens were revelling and ranging over the mountains in Bacchic joy, these two sisters alone remained at home, devoting themselves to their usual occupations, and thus profaning the days sacred to the god. Dionysus punished them by changing them into bats’. How widespread are they in UK and when did they really arrive?

Kate Williamson described how she, Chris Hall and Sam Dyer had piloted hedgehog survey techniques with tracking tunnels. In the middle of the tunnel is an ‘inkpad’ to cover the soles of the feet and make tracks.  The team found that black powder paint (not easy to find these days) mixed with oil was successful, maintaining tackiness for about 6 days. Hot dogs were used to entice subjects into the tunnel and a motion detector camera showed that the local cat was very partial to these! The pilot seems to have worked well but be prepared for cattle to disrupt tunnels.

Chris Hall spoke about surveying for coastal otters across the coastline of Llŷn and Snowdonia. 22 locations of 1 km² were chosen, each with a flow of freshwater. All showed positive in the course of 12 months when surveys in September and May were combined. Working with volunteers can be very successful but you need to control them! Bill and Mandi Taylor (the unsung heroes) were commended for outstanding contributions to these and other surveys.

Pete Turner from Waterford Institute gave the final talk about the use of DNA analysis to identify individual otters. At the time of his talk DNA patterns had been taken from 86 of the 123 spraints from the Llŷn coastal otter survey in 2011. Of these spraints 79 were from females and 7 (8%) were from males.  Do females mark more than males? Analysis so far, from out of the above, has identified 19 different individual otters.

And finally it was the raffle. A great day out and I was particularly pleased that 3 of the delegates signed up to become direct debit subscribers of Natur Cymru! And here are 30 seconds from the day:

It’s all happening at the zoo - harvest mice too

25 of us descended upon Chester Zoo for a training session to survey for harvest mice. I was pleasantly surprised that local conservation work ranks so high on the zoo’s priorities – it’s not all about the exotic, we need to look after the natives too. “Conservation starts at home!” My 50 year old memories of the zoo are elephants and my Mum warning me not to fall into the polar bear pit.

Training was delivered by Sarah Bird (Biodiversity Officer) and Paul Hill, freelance ecologist with experience of captive rearing harvest mice. The event was commissioned by the Mammals In a Sustainable Environment Project (MISE) to grow capability for identification of harvest mice in Wales. From our local records centres we have a total of just 60 records, most of which are old, with only 10 being recorded in the last decade. Surely this has got to be an under recording or is it a catastrophe? 

Some years ago the zoo arranged a reintroduction of harvest mice on fields alongside a canal. We began our training event at this site unloading 20 traps which revealed loads of voles (field and bank) and some wood mice but not what we were looking for. Our second exercise was to search through the undergrowth for the distinctive nests, balls of woven vegetation made mainly with  leaves split lengthways, lashed together without being severed from the plant. 15 minutes later we found our first example, neatly built around the supporting trunks / main stems of a few reeds. Once we got our eye in there was no stopping us and a further 4 were found before returning to our lecture theatre.

We were shown some brilliant ARKive footage to bring the subjects to life. See this as an example: From this link you can navigate to lots more films of harvest mice and all other species. What a fantastic resource!

The characteristics and lifecycle were explained. Widespread distribution from UK to Japan but absent from Ireland! Prehensile tails a very distinctive feature acting as a 5^th limb. Very small size, just 4 to 6 grams, a third or a quarter the size of a field vole. Average life expectancy 6 months. Prolific breeders but 95% mortality in winter, mainly February.

The supposition is that they are in decline due to our changing farming practices but we don’t have much data to confirm or deny this. Thanks to MISE and Chester Zoo we are now going to get a fuller picture of what’s happening in Wales. If you’d like to join in please contact the MISE project website.

Here’s a short film of our training day: 

PS .... the polar bears have gone, their pit has been covered with a net and turned into an aviary.

Coastal Otter Survey on Anglesey

Coastal otters, like coastal people, are not a different species, it’s just a lifestyle choice. They enjoy the sea food but not the salt which clogs up their fur and they need to rinse themselves out in fresh water. So this is why estuaries are a good choice when selecting an area for a coastal otter survey.

We worked our way along the mouth of the estuary at Rhosneigr, then upstream through the dunes, past the busy and noisy RAF Valley runway, towards the golf course. It wasn’t until we got to the bridge by the clubhouse that we found our first spraints – 8 one end and 1 at the other. 

Was it a single otter or many otters? Dog or bitch? In a few weeks time we will know when the DNA has been analysed at the Waterford Institute of Technology, helping us to build up a picture of the otter population and the territorial ranges of individuals.  

What we were doing was being repeated by 6 other groups of volunteers around the coast of Anglesey all organised by Menter Môn. My group leader was Ceri Morris, project officer for MISE - Mammals in a Sustainable Environment, a project looking into a range of mammals (including bats, dormice, red squirrels and harvest mice) that runs on both sides of the Irish Sea.

As well as leading our part of the survey she took time out to record an interview for the BBC Radio Wales Country Focus programme broadcast Sunday 2^nd October. 

Here’s a short clip of Ceri and Dawn seeking out otter spraints - note the very elegant footwear!