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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Upton Warren (40 Viewers)

I'm Paul; John's the other one.

Sorry, should have introduced myself.

Great photo.

Saw what looked like a couple of otter cubs in the dog walking area at Webbs. Saw me and the choccy lab and were gone. Ran towards the Salwarpe. Definitely not mink.


chrispp said:
Waited for the right pic to upload o:D, I was with John waiting for the otter.
That will be my next pic lol

Need a video like Celi's to film that one though

Chrisp
Click to expand...
 
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lesser kestrel said:
I'm Paul; John's the other one.

Sorry, should have introduced myself.

Great photo.

Saw what looked like a couple of otter cubs in the dog walking area at Webbs. Saw me and the choccy lab and were gone. Ran towards the Salwarpe. Definitely not mink.
Click to expand...
Paul are you sure8-P:-O:-O, you Running! not the Otter.

On a positive note and to confirm Paul's suspicions . Vern and a hide full of people have just seen an otter on the Moors pool. :t:B :)
No more need to run Paul8-P
 
Beat me to it. Just had a phone call from Vern re otter seen from the Concrete Hide. Description sounds like a female. With the probable two cubs (seen Thursday), could be they have bred quite locally, even possibly on the reserve.
Saw a cub with its mother last year on the North Moors Pool.
If there is mass panic amongst the gulls and Canada geese, worth scanning the edge of the reed beds for an otter.
 
Sarahrea said:
I plan to go over tomorrow see if I can see te otter where's the best place to go?
Click to expand...

When I saw the Otters some years ago it was from the Concrete hide as they went across the channels...don't expect to see them out on the grass playing though.....8-P o:D 3:)

Keith

p.s. I wonder if it was an Otter that kept putting the Gulls and Lapwings up in front of the east hide on Saturday at 12.35pm (ish)...me and Vern wondered what had caused this.
 
Could be. An indicator is if the gulls don't fly off but make a lot of noise and hover quite low over the water.

Geese and gulls were clearly agitated Saturday late pm; said then I thought an otter could be about.


 
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keithr said:
When I saw the Otters some years ago it was from the Concrete hide as they went across the channels...don't expect to see them out on the grass playing though.....8-P o:D 3:)

Keith

p.s. I wonder if it was an Otter that kept putting the Gulls and Lapwings up in front of the east hide on Saturday at 12.35pm (ish)...me and Vern wondered what had caused this.
Click to expand...

Thanks think ill flitter between the concrete hide and te one next to it
 
Just have a good time Sarah....I just love watching all the birds antics...the Otters would be an icing on the cake.
I will be thinking of you here while I'm at work.... :-C

Keith :t:
 
Sarahrea said:
I plan to go over tomorrow see if I can see te otter where's the best place to go?
Click to expand...

I would agree with Paul - the East (Lapwing) Hide is your best bet of seeing Otter as it has the best panorama of the Moors Pool although they are likley to be distant. I would warn that I have only ever seen Otter on one occasion at UW; they can never be garuanteed but good luck in trying :t:
 
upstarts1979 said:
Just an observation.
Has anyone noticed, how there are usually more swallows on the sailing pool than house martins. The latter gather more over the willows along the southern border of the sailing pool.
conversley - At the Moors there are far more house martins than swallows over the water.
My theory, for what its worth, is that the swallows are more hardy than HM's. The sailing pool has been made much more 'open', a requirement for good yachting, thus they are exposed to harsh weather. At the Moors, the more tree lined periphery, 'shelters' the birds from the worst of the elements. Thus the less hardy house martins, find it to their liking.
A bit of a simplistic explanation, but the ratios today were as follows.

Sailing Pool
swallow to House martin 3:1
Moors
House martin to swallow (roughly) 4:1
Over the years I have observed similar ratios. *I would be interested in other's theories.
Too much time on my hands, we need a goody desperately.8-P
Click to expand...

Interesting theory and I've noticed this myself. John I've sent you a couple of e-mails :)

Mike
 
Something that also occurred to me over the weekend. On Saturday morning it was exclusively House Martins over the Moors Pool - c.50. On the Sailing Pool were over 50 Swallows, c.12 House martins and a couple of Sand Martins.
 
keithr said:
When I saw the Otters some years ago it was from the Concrete hide as they went across the channels...don't expect to see them out on the grass playing though.....8-P o:D 3:)

Keith

p.s. I wonder if it was an Otter that kept putting the Gulls and Lapwings up in front of the east hide on Saturday at 12.35pm (ish)...me and Vern wondered what had caused this.
Click to expand...

I remember it well,on a sunday morning,3 of us in the hide,still got my image o:)
 
upstarts1979 said:
Just an observation.
Has anyone noticed, how there are usually more swallows on the sailing pool than house martins. The latter gather more over the willows along the southern border of the sailing pool.
conversley - At the Moors there are far more house martins than swallows over the water.
My theory, for what its worth, is that the swallows are more hardy than HM's. The sailing pool has been made much more 'open', a requirement for good yachting, thus they are exposed to harsh weather. At the Moors, the more tree lined periphery, 'shelters' the birds from the worst of the elements. Thus the less hardy house martins, find it to their liking.
A bit of a simplistic explanation, but the ratios today were as follows.

Sailing Pool
swallow to House martin 3:1
Moors
House martin to swallow (roughly) 4:1
Over the years I have observed similar ratios. *I would be interested in other's theories.
Too much time on my hands, we need a goody desperately.8-P
Click to expand...

Hi John,

Your observations might be explained by some kind of 'Ideal Free Distribution of Unequal Competitors'. This is where individual organisms arrange themselves to exploit the available resources according to the prevailing conditions and their competitive 'fitness'.

Swallows and House Martins differ in their morphological adaptations, such as wing and tail-length, speed and maneuverability. This affects their prey-selection and niche-preferences.

I think that it is often quite apparent that, in good weather, Swallows generally occupy niches lower down and House Martins often feed at higher levels. The 'resource-partitioning' of the air-space in the vertical dimension allows them to coexist efficiently under these conditions.

In windy, unsettled weather things get mixed up much more and it could be that the ideal free distribution exerts itself in alternative way (more in the horizontal dimension) - perhaps according to topographical features, vegetation and relative shelter (as you suggest), density of flying-insects and the individual's flying patterns /adaptations or other selective criteria.

I noticed some interesting behaviour the other day (when it was a bit unsettled) whereby both Swallows and House Martins were landing briefly in the tops of the Willows and Poplars near the sailing lake - they appeared to be taking insects from or near to the surface of the leaves as they did this. :t:
 
Woodchat said:
I noticed some interesting behaviour the other day (when it was a bit unsettled) whereby both Swallows and House Martins were landing briefly in the tops of the Willows and Poplars near the sailing lake - they appeared to be taking insects from or near to the surface of the leaves as they did this. :t:
Click to expand...

I, too, have been intrigued by the behaviour of the Martins and the Swallows.

Particularly of note, for me, was 13th August 07:00 ,when I arrived at the sailing pool, to 09:00 when I left it.
Around 100+ House Martins were congregated in the big willow by the jetty making a lot of noise. They would fly off en masse and make a wide circuit or two of the tree and then return. They did not appear to be feeding in flight and they returned to sit, preen and chatter. The behaviour was rather like a flock of sparrows. They remained in the tree for minutes at a time before an orchestrated exit.
The weather was dull and still and the lake was flat calm. There was light rain by 13:00.
 

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