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Possible Otter’s Holt (Den) Found

After briefly capturing video footage of an Otter a few nights ago (see here) I went on a scout of the dry riverbed to try to locate a Holt. Holt is the name for an Otter’s Den.

To my surprise, I found one fairly easily and even more surprising that it’s been almost under my nose all this time. Obviously, I’m not going to share its location, but I will set up the Bushnell in a more permanent location to confirm that there is Otter using this Holt. Otters are mainly nocturnal, however, as this location is very quiet, they may be active during daylight too. I will monitor their activity for a while and hope to establish a pattern of activity, if there is regular activity during daylight hours then I’ll plan to hide with the camera. The location is pretty good for photography. 

A big giveaway is the presence of Otter Scat, known as spraints, on the dry riverbed. If you look closely at the photos, you can see small bones and shells which look like remains of Crayfish.

Otter Spraints

Otter Spraints

A Sounder of Javali (Wild Boar) Visited the River Pool

Javali

I relocated the Bushnell Camera yesterday to try and get a better view of the wildlife visiting the River Pool and captured a Sounder of Javali visiting. Sounder being the collective term for a group of Wild Boar.

This group seems to be made up of young Boars as they are not that large in size. The male can grow to 1.80m in length and 1.10m tall and can weigh up to 200kg, the females slightly smaller at 200kg.

Although shy of humans, they can (and will) attack if startled. I’m speaking from experience as Wally (the Dog) and I found out when our paths crossed a few evenings ago. We startled each other as our paths crossed. It made a lot of grunting noises and ran straight at us. Although not the official method, I grabbed Wally and we ran to the house!

{Remember to watch in HD if possible}

Otter At Our River! (Video)

Dry River Pool

We are lucky to have the Odelouca River cut its way through part of our land, you notice I didn’t use the term run through our land. Usually, sometime in June the river runs dry and remains dry until the heavy Autumn rains kick-start it flowing at the end of October, beginning of November. We are up-stream of the Barragem do Odelouca which provides drinking water for the Algarve.

It’s the end of October and so far there hasn’t been any significant rain to make any difference. All around the river banks both on and near our land have well established tracks that wildlife use to access the river and for a while I have been wanting to set up my Bushnell trail camera to see what frequents the river.

At various meanders and bends on the river, pools form and stay deep enough all year for the aquatic life to seek refuge of the dry river bed. Of course, these pools not only provide drinking water for other wildlife, but food.

One of the tracks leading to the river passes under a wire fence and I took a look at some hair that had been caught. To be honest, I had no idea, but took a guess at Otters.

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Adobe Lightroom: Big Changes Ahead!

It’s no hidden fact that Adobe has been pushing for Cloud based dominance in the Photo Post-Production world and this news really shows for the hard work behind the scenes. Will I like and use it? Maybe not, but at least (for now) there is still the good old way.

Adobe has announced that the “All-New” Lightroom CC will be very much a cloud based solution with Apps designed to work seamlessly cross-platform whether that be Desktop, Mobile, Web or even a bit of all of them.

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Coming Soon – Photography Workshops, free places will be available!

Photography Workshops

You may have noticed a new option in the menu taking you to a new page, Photography Workshops.

All the information you need (for now) is in the page, but in a nutshell, I’m planning 1 day Photography Workshops up here in the hills of the Algarve. These small-sized attendee workshops will teach the basics of photography along with a more advanced workshop coming further down the road.

The workshops will be a mixture of classroom theory and practical sessions. They are being planned to be as hands-on as possible including getting around the village (São Marcos da Serra) practising.

[Update to below] This post was before the workshops became active, therefore, the free sessions are no longer available.

Before I launch the workshops, I’ll need to run one, possibly two, test workshops to confirm timings and content. These will be offered free-of-charge, if you are interested in attending one of these “Beta” workshops, then please register your interest by Contacting Me (first-come, first served).

More information on the Photography Workshops Page

500mm Repair Update!

Following on from my “500mm F/4 Lens Disaster“, I have finally sent the Lens off for evaluation.

A big thanks to Eunice Lopes who contacted me after a plea on Portuguese Nikon Club’s Facebook page. Eunice suggested that I could take my lens to El Corte Ingles (a department store) in Lisbon for them to send off on my behalf.

This got me thinking, if one major seller can do this, can other Nikon dealers do the same? I contacted FNAC (an electrical store) and asked if they offer the same service. Not only do they offer it, but I could take it to my local store in the Algarve. So, the lens is now in FNAC’s possession and I await a response.

However, about 2 hours after leaving the lens with FNAC, AtlantPhoto finally responded to my service request stating that I can actually take the lens to their offices in Lisbon where it would be shipped to their service centre in Barcelona for evaluation and, hopefully, repair.

Therefore, if I have no joy with FNAC, at least I can take it direct to AltantPhoto.

More when I know!

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