Day 355 - Oar-some Otters!

10 Days to go!

Asian Short Clawed Otter (Aonyx cinerea)

Hey everyone, today's Day 355. Before I start, I'm going to say that today is a special day, not only because there's only 10 days to go, but because today was the day I reached 100,000 views. 100,000. That's a huge amount of views. When I started this blog I assumed I would get maybe 1000 but they'd only be the ones that people miss-click a link. It's incredible, so a huuuge thank you to everyone who has read them and supported me.

So, for a special day I thought I would do a special animal. They're Otters. Sorry for the dodgy alliteration today but adjectives beginning with 'o' aren't very descriptive of otters! And they do kind of have little oars on the ends of their legs!

The first time I saw one of these (out of only 2), was at Leighton Moss. This one, was called Limpey. Mainly because he had a limp. He himself was shown on Autumnwatch last year so you might remember him but I can't find the couple of photos I took!

Anyway, I got some photos from WWT Washington which I'm using today. Here are the facts:

• Firstly, these particular ones are called Asian Short-Clawed Otters. I'll cover some facts about just these but I'll also be doing Otters in general.

Having a good sniff about

• Otters in general are seen all throughout the UK, not getting any less common depending on where you are.

• To tell them apart from the Mink, is very hard. They are quite similar. But nevertheless I shall tell you how to identify each.

• The Otter is the larger of the two, and the Otter has a black, not pink, nose.

• An Otter's tail is decidedly long. It's usually about a third of the length of the whole Otter.

• The Asian Short-Clawed Otter's body is, on average, 52cm long, while its tail is 30cm. That's a total length of 82cm.

• The Common Otter is much larger than the other, it is, on average, 110cm long. That's a 30cm difference!

What's that?

• This means, then, the weight will be a huge difference as well. It's true! The Short Otter is between 1kg and 5kgs but the Common is 7kg for the Female but the Males is 10kg!

• They feed, pretty obviously, on fish. They won't learn fully how to find fish until they're about 18 months old. Their mother helps them with this.

• She has to do this as she only feeds them until they are around a year old so they have another 6 months learning to fish. She helps by releasing live fish she has caught for the year old cubs to re-catch.

• Otters have two to three cubs every year and give birth to them in their dens which are called holts.

Beautiful creatures!

• I did say they feed on fish but they do from time to time eat water birds and frogs.

• Otters live wherever there is clean water and fish. They will live in seawater but need to have some fresh water nearby to be able to clean their fur. If they don't clean their fur it won't insulate them from the cold water very well.

Here are some links to some more information:

Nature Spot - Common Otter

ARKive - Common Otter - Asian Short-Clawed Otter

Hope you enjoyed,

Z.

Day 340 - Fabulously Delightful Fallow Deer

Male Fallow Deer (Dama dama)

Hey everyone today's Day 340 and I am sort of going to be continuing Day 338's genre of finding nature outside of the reserve. Firstly, I want to say that today's post is relatively special as it's Day 340 it's just a 10 number but I still thought I would cover something relatively significant. Well, that's exactly what I'll do. When we were over at Leighton Moss RSPB we started to drive home after a lovely trip there. We thought our nature hunting for the day was done but no, I spotted out of the car window a lovely Fallow Deer. I jumped out of the car (it was a country lane) and took some pics.

So, here are the facts:

• Firstly, I want to say that these were the first Fallow Deer that I have ever seen in the wild. It was even more impressive seeing the Buck as well as the hinds, though they went into the trees before I could get my camera ready.

Quite happy grazing whilst I photographed it

• The other place that I have seen Fallow Deer is Fountains Abbey but this is a Deer Park and they are kept in the grounds there.

• They like to live in mature broadleaf woodlands with clearings but they will live in open coniferous woodland and open agricultural land. 

• They like to eat grasses but will eat trees and shrub shoots in autumn and winter.

• Fallow deer are a native deer but that was around 400,000 years ago! When we had ice ages they were pushed out to other warmer parts of Europe. They were brought back by the Normans who kept them in parks for hunting but some escaped and set up home again!

• The first thing about the Bucks is that their horns look absolutely amazing. They are really thick and they are very impressive.

• I found it relatively hard telling apart the 3 main Studley deer types but I managed to get this short guide into my head:
• Fallow = Spotty bodies.
• Red     = The biggest ones, and they are Red.
• Roe     = They have a Black Nose and a White chin.

• The Males are about 84cm - 94cm at their shoulder and the Females are about 73cm - 91cm, So a case of sexual dimorphism is what we have.

Lovely antlers and spotty coat

• The difference in size makes quite a difference in weight too. The Males weigh 46kg - 94kg and the Females only about 35kg - 56kg.

• Well, one final thing on the Male Deer, they can live usually from 8 - 10 years but they have been recorded all the way to 16 years.

• In most populations of Fallows, they maintain the usual rut. This is basically where they will literally fight over the Females.

• Now, I said in most cases, well, it's true that some populations where there are lots of Males they will create a lek where they try to attract the Females.

Here are some links to some more information:

BDS - Fallow Deer

Wikipedia - Fallow Deer

The Wildlife Trusts - Fallow Deer

Hope you enjoyed,

Z.