Early Spring Wildlife

In the day time sightings of otters have been scarce.   3 weeks ago I saw a family, mother and 2 cubs,  bring a large dogfish on shore but then I lost them.  I may have disturbed them because I did hear the alarm call - 'hah, hah' from the rocks though I could not see them.  That was the last sighting but the trail camera has been more successful.   I put an external battery onto it and changed the video setting to record for 30 seconds.   Two nights ago it picked up a single otter on 5 occasions - here are two clips:

If they don't play, then the You Tube links are:  http://youtu.be/YYWDs6O7PAw and http://youtu.be/L-wp_61IR4Y

In flower are the first of the primroses and bilberry.   There are a few queen white-tailed bumble bees ambling about rather sluggishly.

We saw two sea eagles high up over Scalpay this morning whilst yesterday there was a large group of red throated divers together with mergansers, shag and a single black guillemot.

Towards the end of March there were several dry, but cold nights, so I had the moth trap out.   The absolute number of moths caught and the species count were low but after lots of rain it was good to see what was about.   Nothing special but here are 5 of the 6 species caught:
  

Hebrew Character

Red Chestnut

Clouded Drab

Red Sword-grass

Yellow Horned

Now it is time to see if there is anything else about outside!