On the trail of the Otter - A secret area for filming Otters is found

  After returning to the wood yesterday where I found fresh Otter signs I wanted to have a look around the area abit more and try to follow the trail of where the Otter came from and where it went and after tracking the prints through bramble beds down the stream until we reached the river and we lost the tracks but after another look around we found a few more signs that there was an Otter living in this area and the signs were even better as on the river we found a tree that had been submerged in the water due to erosion and on the trunk there was muddy footprints and a few fish scales on the tree maybe used by Otters to exit the water and have a good scratch or due a place to take the fish caught in the river. This tree is a great spot to put a camera to get some footage of the Otter feeding by the river.

 As I searched further along the river I found a gully where a small stream flows down into the river and I followed some prints up this narrow passage way to a small cave under some tree roots and was amazed to see spraint outside. The cave has two entrances where the footprints go in which is much smaller and a slightly larger entrance where the prints come out and return downstream. 

I wanted to explore inside to see if there were anymore signs of anything using the cave as a den or maybe a Otter stay (basically an Otter hotel where they stay for a night and move on to the rest of there territory) or even a holt. As I had brought a cheap 5MP flash camera trap with me and a post so I decided to set it up inside the cave and leave for a few days after squeezing in I found more spraint meaning this was the best place to capture an Otter passing through. Today I went and checked the camera trap and I had a few images of a fox which did not come out to good due having a bright flash in a small place.

So after resetting the camera I fitted a red filter over half the flash on the camera to let red light and a white flash in order to reduce the bright flash that has been reflected off the cave walls.