Yet Another Survey - mid-Feb 2026

Paathipoley
- ...and a light-hearted note on the searching for otters

Dates of survey:
February 14th morning: Below the bridge
February 15th morning: Above the bridge

This survey was, of course, an opportunity to show off my Garmin GPS to society in general, but what it did was to tell us that the only thing more complicated than the Garmin Etrex 32X is an Airbus A 321 cockpit. It has a compass, barometric altimeter, man overboard alarm (which we are unlikely to use in a forest at 3,500 feet above MSL) and maybe even a damn calorie count meter for our bread-n-jam breakfast, but it cannot, just cannot, let us know in simple ways anything we want to know, so I was tempted to sink it into the ground for someone to find in 2200 AD. And later at home, while porting this data to Google Earth with some complex twists and format conversions, I had dark words for the Garmin guys. If I ever meet them……

But, let’s go with the main story.

All hard at work (except the photographer)

We covered about 3 km over the two days (with me cursing the climbing as usual and checking all 206 bones every 10 minutes) and the photo below is of the only patch (or so it seems) when the rocks took a break (and gave me one).

Jayasri at work with her camera

In summary, here is what we did, without the altitude data that would have otherwise impressed everyone who has not climbed up to Everest Base Camp.

On Feb 14th, we started from Breakfast Point (on the extreme right of the red line in the image) at about 9.30-ish and clambered up well over a km before the first interesting spraint was sighted which was, as were the ones after, about 3-4 days old. It was frustrating enough for us to forget that it was Valentine’s Day, until Anu rectified matters and announced it to sundry researchers and a few fish that were listening in, with the hope of cheering people on.

Here is the image for posterity (of the stream, not of Valentine’s Day celebrations)

The faint blue covers the transect and the darker blue is between the two points, which are clustered together. The absence of fresh spraint suggests one of three possibilities:

- that the otters have moved

- that they were in this stretch for a brief while before going back to the home stretch

- that we have missed a couple of spraint sites.

On reflection, the second option seems more likely than the others (our thoroughness was impressive, so if the otters have a couple of fresh spraint sites that we could not detect, they have a new trick up their paws and I will give up for good)

Don't believe the smiles

We ended at the pool just before the bridge and needed a fair bit of wine in the evening to keep the spirits up.
Distance covered (Garmin-be-cursed): 1.8 km
Spraint cluster: Two spraint sites, within about 100-150 metres of each other.

Consolation prize: we see stuff like this all the time, which makes modern art look like something the cat left behind.

Pc: Jayasri

On Feb 15th, we ascended the stream above the bridge and the spraint drought (a term that I have now invented in the hope of having some contribution to my name in the annals of otter research) continued until a point about 1 km above when we got one 2-day old spraint site (a single individual) - that is marked at Point 6.

Red hues and shadows

Spraint on the rocks?
3-4 days old

Dinesh has that amused look of one who sees kids play some incomprehensible
game of marbles. Pc: Jayasri

Skip the dip

Distance covered: 1.2 km (after which we returned)

Spraint cluster: Two spraint sites (3+4), within about 100 metres of each other.

Overall, this data is puzzling because it was inconsistent with our findings from 2024, which is excerpted below:

(In 2025, Rohan and I did just one transect of 1.2 km and the GPS bit didn’t work then, so we’ll ignore that data for now.)

Quote:

The survey data indicates the likely presence of at least 4-5 packs of small clawed otters in the two streams (we expect that it could be higher). This estimate has been arrived at on the basis of

Repeated surveys done from November to March; and
The spatial distribution, aggregation & separation of spraint sites

Paathipoley and Makhipoley have an unusually large number of spraint sites (as can be seen from the data, particularly in March 2024). Hence, it is likely that the number of packs might be greater than 5 and/or the number of individuals in each pack is greater than in the other streams surveyed.

Unquote

…which means, March 2026, here I come!

Questions that we have discussed and will continue to do so:
Why do small clawed otters migrate (as they seem to be doing)?
Where have they gone, for Heaven’s sake?

Have asked Dinesh to do a downstream recce, below Breakfast Point, on Wednesday - a distance of about 1.2 km to the bridge below Chelavara. Will update the blog as and when.
He will also place camera traps at two points, he says.

What co-variates should we consider (other than prey density, which is super hard to collect) that are dynamic?
In other words, rock assemblages and riparian cover, for instance, do not change in the short run, so we can ignore them in this study, but what could be dynamic and impactful?
What is the ideal frequency of data collection with these transects?

My view, post the 2023-24 survey, was that it was best done weekly or fortnightly in season. This is now endorsed by the group as well.

How can we optimally use camera traps?
Are we going wrong in some fundamental way? (I am the king of pointless existential questions, so this one can never be resisted)

...and the prize for the best researcher in the team goes to.....