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Filming otters isn't exactly an every day task, so have the team headed to some remote area in Baldersdale or the North York Moors? No – that would be far too easy.

As reporter Mary Askew explains the camera traps are set in industrial Teesside:

I confess I am struggling to believe it myself, otters on industrial wasteland in Teesside. It just sounds so improbable doesn’t it? But, the signs are there.

Wildlife experts have found footprints and an otter spraint (poo) beside a pool at Saltholme, the RSPB’s new reserve in the shadow of giant cooling towers and the Transporter Bridge.

The difficulty is that nobody has actually spotted the shy animal. And that’s where we come in!

Our Springwatch challenge for this year is to catch the Saltholme otter (or maybe otters) on film.

Kenny Crooks

So on Monday 1 June; myself, cameraman Jonny Coates and Tees Valley Wildlife Trust’s otter man Kenny Crooks pulled on our boots and hid a camera in the swampy undergrowth of Saltholme. It’s a really clever bit of kit that kicks into action for 90 seconds whenever it spots anything moving.

It might be filming a water vole, a heron, or even just a duck... but, maybe, just maybe, it’s going to be triggered by our otter. Early every morning this week, we’ll download onto this page whatever the camera has shot in the previous 24 hours. Within minutes of us finding out whether we have been successful, you can find out too by logging on.

Kenny is hopeful that we will be successful:

"We have put the camera in a location that I think otters will be visiting so I feel reasonably confident that we will have something on film in the next few nights. We have positioned a stone that I hope the otters will come out of the water to investigate and then spraint on, to mark their territory.

Dave Braithwaite

"Otters don’t like dirty water, and it’s not that many years ago that the Tees was a dead river, so to have signs that the animals are returning is fantastic news."

Saltholme’s site manager Dave Braithwaite said:

"It is going to be so exciting each day to find out what we have got on film. It would be amazing to get footage of otters that we can show visitors here. They would be astounded that such wildlife lives in a place which is actually so close to heavy industry."

And our secret weapon? Today I bought a tin of sardines to place near the camera. Apparently otters love them!