Hello all from Emily,
Life is bustling at Saltholme, as always! The most exciting news at the moment is that we have BBC Springwatch with us for a while, searching for the otters that we have seen signs of on site. I’m going to be handing over the blog to BBC Look North reporter Mary Askew this week as she writes us updates about the team’s progress. Over to Mary . . .
Monday June 1
When I first heard rumours about an otter at Saltholme I was sceptical. I had fallen for the RSPB reserve back in 2007 when I reported on Springwatch's Kate Humble turning the first sod of the visitor's centre. I loved the tranquil streams and ponds that lay just a few hundred metres from Teesside's heavy industry, but could an otter live here? I thought it unlikely. Just a few years ago the Tees was classed as a 'dead' river and otters need clean water to survive.
Then I spoke to Saltholme manager Dave Braithwaite. "It's true," he said. "Kenny Crooks of Tees Valley Wildlife Trust was down here looking for water voles, but while he was here he found otter footprints, and an otter spraint - that's otter poo. We're so excited."
"Has anyone spotted the otter," I asked. "No," Dave sighed. Then there was a long pause. We were both thinking the same thing: Wouldn't it be fabulous to set up a hidden camera to see if we could capture it on film.
That was three weeks ago, and today our camera finally arrived in the post. It's a really clever bit of kit that springs into action whenever it detects movement, the type of equipment that viewers to Springwatch have become accustomed to in recent years. Of course, it might be triggered by movement from any of the wildlife at Saltholme - even the rare purple heron that has been spotted over recent days - but, fingers crossed, it's going to be triggered by our otter.
So cameraman Jonny Coates and Saltholme’s assistant warden Toby Collett pulled on their waders and 
fixed the camera to a post in one of the streams - although Toby nearly dropped it in his excitement at spotting what looked like a tiny bit of reed in the water, no more than 3cm long. "It's a caddisfly larvae," he exclaimed, "I've never seen one alive before." I hope I looked suitably enthusiastic, but I confess I had hoped to spot something a little bigger...
Jonny and Toby created a little stone island in the middle of the water, right in front of the camera, in the hope that the otter might rest there. And, to make it all the more tempting, we put some premium tinned sardines down too. It's a spot that had been singled out by Kenny Crooks (whose work with urban wildlife is funded by a Heritage Lottery Fund) as a good location. He says he's confident we'll see an otter there in the next few days. All we can do now is wait. Early every morning this week, we'll be wading into the water to download whatever the camera has recorded in the previous 24 hours. That material will go straight onto BBC Tees' website. This means you can find out if we have been successful, almost as soon as we do - just log on to www.bbc.co.uk/tees/nature