May – a month to forget!
I look back on the month of May with sadness. The reason for this is that on the 23rd & 24th May we had yet another 24 hour flash flooding in Edinburgh. The normal height of the Water of Leith at SEPA’s Murrayfield reading station is about 0.5m, at this time of year. However, on the above dates, the water level rose from 0.5m to 2.3m. The impact on the local wildlife has been very noticeable. Kingfishers nest on holes in the riverbanks and many of these would have been underwater as the water rose to 2.3m. Foxes, badgers and the otters all live along the riverbank and they all had young ones to fend for. Many fox earths, badger setts and otter holts found themselves completely underwater.
I monitor a lot of these creatures via trail cameras & even two of my trail cameras found themselves underwater and washed away! Whilst the foxes and badgers have extensive networks of burrows to move to, I am afraid the otters don’t have the same facilities. Sadly, I know there was at least one otter mum that had given birth around 10-15 May & there is no way she would have been able to save all her young. At most, she might have been able to save one. [The rest of this paragraph was updated at the end of June, after viewing trail camera footage] However, the trail camera footage that I have, shows that she was around for the 3 days after the floods but then she disappeared for 2 weeks. After re-appearing for another couple of days, she disappeared for another 2 weeks. This is not the behaviour I would expect to see from the otter mum, if she had managed to save 2-3 cubs. If the cubs did survive, they are due to come out of the holt, for the first time, around 15-31 July – so fingers crossed.
It wasn’t all dome and gloom for May. After filming the flooding between 5am – 7am on the 24th, I then jumped in the car at 9am, with a couple of friends and headed to the Isle of May for the day. The weather was perfect and many of the usual birds were about – puffins, kittiwakes, guillemots, razorbills, etc. On our way back we managed to spot a peregrine on the cliffs and also plenty seals basking on the rocks.
At the very end of May, I managed a flying visit to Ardnamurchan on the 30th/31st – I was on my way to the Outer Hebrides but decided to take a detour! I managed to see otters, seals, red deer & even lamas!
All of the above was interspersed with walks along the Water of Leith, during May but I can’t help but feel that we have lost more otter cubs. This is sad as it has happened so soon after losing 4 cubs, to the floods at the end of December and the beginning of January, only a few months ago! Nature can be so cruel… but it’s also sending us a message!
