Searching for Otters with the Pulsar Merger LRF XL50

Over the past month I have been using the Pulsar Merger XL50s to both help with my university projects as well as my own personal projects when it comes to searching for wildlife around where I live.

I have just started my third (and final) year at Falmouth University, where I am studying marine and natural history photography, so having a piece of kit like these thermal binoculars is extremely useful, as it makes finding the animals I’m trying to take pictures of a whole lot easier.

At the moment I am trying to formulate an idea for my final project, so I have been going out with the Mergers, scouting around my local area to see what wildlife is around that I could possibly create a large piece of work about. On these scouting excursions, I would explore some nearby rockpools to see which species of shore birds were about (seeing things like turnstones, oystercatchers, and shags), or I would head over to my local lake where I would occasionally catch a glimpse of a brightly coloured kingfisher or even a lovely little grebe.

I’d also heard rumours that, this month, there were otters at my local reservoir, and so I decided to set myself the challenge to try and document them and prove that they actually are there. Now, over the past two years of living in Cornwall, I’ve spent countless hours at this reservoir and never once have I seen any signs of otters being present. But they’re one of my favourite animals to see here in the UK, so I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to see one for myself.

Speaking to someone who claims to have seen the otters in question, they told me I would have my best chances up on the northern side, where a small stream runs into the reservoir. As you’ll no doubt know, otters are mostly nocturnal, so the Merger LRF XL50 (paired with a trail camera I already own) would be my only realistic chance of spotting this elusive species.

On the first day of my search, I set off from my car just as the sun was beginning to set, making my way to the small stream before it was completely dark. Once there, I set my trail camera up, tying it to a tree overlooking the stream; positioning myself just along from the trail camera with the Mergers at the ready to try and spot any potential animals hiding away in the vegetation around me. Sadly, after a good few hours, nothing had shown up so, my search proving fruitless, I decided to head home.

The next morning, I headed out just before first light, walking back to the same spot to spend an hour or so before university to try my luck again. Upon arrival, I noticed that my trail camera had fallen in the night and was now pointing straight at the ground. This was disheartening, as my first though was that there would be no chance of it having captured anything. However, when I looked back on the footage, I saw a clip of an otter moving straight underneath it only about half an hour prior to my arrival. My spirits lifted, I perched myself nearby and once again sat looking through the thermal binos in the hopes that the otter would pass through once more. Unfortunately, once again after an hour or so of waiting, I saw absolutely no signs of otters before having to head off to my lecture.

A week of horrendous weather was approaching and I knew that I was running out of chances to achieve what I wanted to, so I headed out once again, hoping to finally capture some footage before the storms hit. I set out in the evening, but decided this time I would just do a lap of the reservoir with the thermals to try and cover all areas and see if there are any signs of activity. Hoping that, if the otter was out swimming on the reservoir, I would be able to pick it up on the Merger as a nice bright white heat signature. And, while I did pick up plenty of heat signatures on the walk, in the form of birds such as herons and geese along the banks of the water, sadly the search for otters was once again a failure.

Although I wasn’t fortunate enough to capture any photos of the otters for my project this time, at least I managed to prove that they actually were on the reservoir through the trail cameras footage. It’s now my goal to try and capture higher quality footage of them by using the powerful camera on the XL50’s to better illustrate to more people the kind of amazing animals we have living right here on our doorsteps in Falmouth.