I went out checking my favourite survey site on Saturday and decided to go a lot further upstream than I usually do.
There was plenty of sign about but one particular piece of sign struck me as a bit different - there is otter spraint in a latrine.
Now, normally they will deposit on a prominent point - a log or rock for example - to advertise their presence. A fox does something similar and these marks are usually topped up regularly as they get washed away. Badgers dig latrines and deposit as boundary markers, the nature of the latrine being that the deposit will not wash away and is a somewhat more permanent fixture.
I've not before seen an otter deposit in a srape in the ground. When there are little or no prominent features to deposit upon then they resort to 'castling' whereby they rake up grass, leaves, mud etc and leave the spraint on the mound they created. This isn't the case here, it's definitely in the scrape.
Just wondering if anyone else has come across this sort of arrangement.
There was plenty of sign about but one particular piece of sign struck me as a bit different - there is otter spraint in a latrine.
Now, normally they will deposit on a prominent point - a log or rock for example - to advertise their presence. A fox does something similar and these marks are usually topped up regularly as they get washed away. Badgers dig latrines and deposit as boundary markers, the nature of the latrine being that the deposit will not wash away and is a somewhat more permanent fixture.
I've not before seen an otter deposit in a srape in the ground. When there are little or no prominent features to deposit upon then they resort to 'castling' whereby they rake up grass, leaves, mud etc and leave the spraint on the mound they created. This isn't the case here, it's definitely in the scrape.
Just wondering if anyone else has come across this sort of arrangement.
