September 8 a bit cooler today but the front that went through gave us no rain, and it is still humid. I spent the night on the Island, and I got to the Big Pond dam before 9am. Since I didn't see any beavers here at 7:15pm, I hoped they might be the kind that stay out late in the morning. I flushed a heron by the southwest corner of the pond, and then a deer, but no beavers about. I crossed the dam and could see that one had just been down the trail over the dam -- the water at the foot of the trail was muddy.
I got a good photo of how the trails goes down into the meadow, though you can hardly see the little grove of shadbushes they are cutting.
Over the years I've often seen the Lost Swamp Pond beaver colony out after 9 am, but not today. First I sat above the mossy cove latrine, and took my shirt off to dry the sweat on my back. After an osprey circled and flew off nothing much happened, but when I checked the latrine for scat, I was pleased to see one not far from the one I saw a few days ago.
I prefer otter scats be a bit looser, drippy, some mucous, wilder, if you will, rather than neat plops like this. But while the design was not perfect, being too perfect, the stuff in the poop looked like vintage fishy business that I
think only an otter would deposit, especially at this spot.
Raccoon poop has gone to seed and this scat was too wet for skunks, too big for anything else. So I was encouraged to sit up on a rock and watch for 45 minutes, pay my dues.
I soon noticed a duck sitting still on a log and then when the duck moved off, it turned out to be two ducks. I was concealed enough that one duck swam rather near and spruced up its feathers, I thought it was too large for a teal and too small for mallard, and rather dull brown. Some wood ducks wondered by. Then a half dozen geese flew in. If just one otter is working these ponds, which I think is the case, it will be hard to happen upon it. Patience. I walked down to the Second
Swamp Pond, and sent several ducks into the air, mostly wood ducks, judging by the squealing. I sat for about 15 minutes and enjoyed the faraway antics of flickers and bluejays in the trees above the knoll.
On the way to the dam I saw a freshly dug hole with a yellow jacket hovering in it. I found bits of honeycomb nearby, so a skunk probably dug it.
I must say in these swamps I don't see much evidence of drought, and the moss covered rocks facing north look as beautiful as ever.
There was no big changes in the dam. I enjoyed two monarch butterflies, one looked especially orange. Then I decided to see if the beavers have been harvesting the alder below the dam. I found their trail
and I found alder
and had to spread back some shoots to find their recent cuts.
These are all saplings that grew out of the large alder bushes the beavers cut last year.
I went home via the Big Pond dam and crossing it this time, I bumped into some honeybees
even got a photo of one flying betweengoldenrods.
I flushed the heron again, which won me a welldeserved croak.
September 10 I took a walk around the Deep Pond going via the Third Pond where I noticed that the maple at the dam was losing it yellow leaves.
We should pay more attention to individual trees, or perhaps at a certain point a tree gets big enough to notice. We do pay attention to our apple trees and this year is the first year that we haven't had an apple crop on our tree at the foot of the ridge down from the Third Pond. I ate one apple and could only see two more. In our region it is said that this is a good year for wild apples so I wonder if our trees are just getting crowded out. I went around the Deep Pond counter
clockwise and before I got to the dam, I saw a trail coming up from the pond. It had a nice curve to it and headed into some small willows.
I spread them apart and saw that some had been nipped at their base.
Can't say that this is fresh work, but it is the first time I've seen at. At the dam, I saw burmarigolds, green frogs
and the shelf of mud that the beaver has fashioned.
When we finally get enough rain to get the creeks flowing again, it will be interesting to see how the beaver builds up this platform. (We had about a quarter inch yesterday which didn't get much flowing.) The frog in the middle of mud jumped when I crossed,
and I took a photo of the dam from the other direction.
Continuing around the pond, I have noticed a trail going up to the vernal pool just to the west of the pond. It looked like the beaver must have nipped somethings there but I couldn't find any evidence. I checked on the flower that looked like a huge turtlehead plant. On the way I took a photo of a small turtlehead, and as Leslie advised this larger flower was not another species, just a huge turtlehead flower.
Competing for sun with taller plants, it just pulled out all the stops. I climbed over the knoll and didn't see any fresh mud on the lodge, but it seems quite adequate for one beaver.
Since I may have lost photos I took this past week, I took another photo of the trail the beaver made up off the inlet creek
that headed it to a thicker knot of willows, looked cozy there, but no sign that the beaver cut anything. There may be more sticks outside the burrow on the high slope, but the pond water level is dropping so I may just be seeing more of the old wood. Coming up from the pond to the road I saw a wave of golden rod above me.
And if I moved a little to my right I could see a wave of goldenrod coming over me and a smaller wave of asters.
When I got close to the the goldenrod, I noticed a small spider enjoying one plant.
After lunch I checked on the four crayfish I've been keeping in an aquarium. I found that two of them were were dead. I pulled up the rock forming a small cave expecting to find the other two dead, and instead a big crayfish jumped out, brandishing its claws. Perhaps the aquarium became too small for the four of them, but then the smallest of the crayfish pranced out. I cleared away the watermilfoil that they trimmed almost bare. Then when I woke up from a short nap, and looked over at the aquarium I saw the big crayfish in a power pose on top of the
rock.
I took a photo of the triumphant crayfish,
and the dead one,
which I put back into the aquarium to see if the remaining crayfish would scavange it.
September 11 with rain threatening we headed off to check on Shangri-la Pond. There was a brief shower as we walked up the East Trail woods that ended by the time we got to the ridge overlooking the pond. From the ridge I could see the same pattern of beaver foraging, trails in the vegetation up pond and muddy channels closer to the dam. I saw a half harvested clump of willows up pond,
but no other obvious centers of activity. Down pond the stripped logs continue to accumulate on certain mounds of mud along the channels.
I walked down around the dam and was impressed with the number of maple trees that have been cut, which I couldn't see at all from the ridge. The larger ones cut were mostly hung up on other trees,
but the beavers did a neat job of cutting some smaller maples,
that fell across the trail and most of the leaves have been taken along with most of the branches.
The channel heading north is quite narrow, but very muddy.
I saw how the beavers dredged around a rock in the canal.
Of course the canal is muddy because the beavers are cutting trees all around it, mostly the smaller maples.
But they have started gnawing into one older maple,
looks like very gnarly work.
Some saplings have been on the slope up the ridge.
I did see some segmenting, one log left behind,
but it seems they are mostly taking the crowns. Seeing the extent of their harvest underscores how the piping of the dam drove the colony that had been here off. Of course, these beavers are masters of dredging and the lack of water behind the dam doesn't bother them at all. On my way back around the pond, I had to concede that they are also pretty good tree cutters, too.
I headed across the board walk crossing the East Trail Pond meadow which was dancing with blooms, and I noticed some pink knot weed along with the burmarigold, quite pretty. I was noticing that the bees seemed to
ignore the burmarigold, but I did see a reddish ladybug in one bloom.
I flushed a duck off what remains to the pond, which really did look like a blue winged teal. I also saw some berry laced poop, big enough for a deer, but I think raccoons left it.
Over at the Second Swamp Pond all seemed quiet. There were no new scats at the otter latrine. There was some fresh additions to the beaver lodge -- willow the easiest to see.
I heard but didn't see a kingfisher. The south end of the dam is still a closed book to me -- the cattails tall enough to be claustrophobic, but on the south end of the dam I could see several places where the beavers were cutting the cattails.
I took the shortcut up to the Lost Swamp Pond and came down at the mossy cove latrine. The scat I saw there a few days ago continues to look fresh. No new scats, though. There was a frog sitting on a left there, perhaps confused about the best camouflage as autumn arrives.
And here too all seemed quiet but I didn't sit around to wait for any excitement. As I approached the Big Pond dam, I saw a large closer gentian just off the path I usually take. Never seen one here before.
The one I noticed closer to the pond is still developing.
So as I walked through the meadow below the north end of the dam, I looked hard for more closed gentian and hardly glanced at the pond, where not much was happening, except a good number of ducks flew off. I didn't check
to see if the beavers have taken more shadbush. I did notice that here too the beavers seem to be eating cattails.
The beaver dam had some new logs on top of it.
I'll have to figure out these beavers' hours and then get up to the pond above this one, where they spent last winter, to see if any are still there. Have to do that before hunting season begins. Noticed a bee in the
burmarigold.
I also enjoyed the vervain, that has been blooming since early July, trying to fend off the burmarigold that just started blooming.
And then, while I usually take the changing leaves in stride, I couldn't resist a photo of a small red maple.
At the land we hiked down to see the closed gentian and we did find two plants, one just developing and at its peak.
Then we tried out some trails, eventually getting up to the ridge. I spotted a dead ironwood, and my task of the moment is identifying them before the leaves come down off the living trees. On that ridge I enjoyed the
variety of ferns
and also the fruits of the false solomon seal.
and then we stopped to admire the ripple rock in one of the smaller ridges.
On the most worn trail from our house to the road, we found the remains, rather fresh, of some animal we couldn't identify.
September 12 cool morning and I scouted the land for dead trees to cut for firewood, and found about 25 ironwoods. I also stumbled upon a likely place for my stone hovel, a broad rock face behind a tall pine which means
that there is not much underbrush. I could cut buckthorn and honeysuckle and get a view of Teepee Pond. While engaging in this pipe-dream, a large bird flew below me -- dark with white tail. It stayed low, I flushed it again. I would say it was a cuckoo
but have little evidence. We get cold fronts coming through but only spotty showeres, so the First Pond is low enough to show the ribs of logs under it
and fanning out in front of the lodges. I tiptoed out on the major log raft, now dry, and was able to get photos showing the holes under the logs fronting the burrows along the bank.
Another burrow was exposed
and I stuck my camera down into it. Looks so easy to figure out their living arrangements but.... The photo above also show loose rocks on what would have been the bottom of the pond. Probably pulled out of the burrow by the beavers. I also saw large rocks in the crisscrossing of the logs out in the pond.
The arrangement of the logs on the lodges seemed like such random strength and beauty.
I also checked on the heron remains, most bones are clean and bleaching, as well as the beak,
but I'm not sure how the claws will decay.
Of course, I snuck up on the green frogs where I use to see them. A large one jumped with a cry, and two smaller were left behind, high and dry on the widening apron of mud along the shore, backs to each other.
Also heard a towhee.
September 13 I was back on the island in the afternoon with perfect conditions for going out in the kayak. So I headed to Picton Island. The river is largely empty now, perhaps the geese are scarce because the season for hunting them has been open since the first of the month. If they are about, the ospreys are quiet. There are a few caspian terns, and less gulls than usual. The cormorants seem to be the main focus of energy, in their unique fashion. As I paddled by them on the shoal rock at the headland, they don't panic. They hop nimbly into the water, and then quietly flap ahead and fly up low over the river. I got about ten into the air, and they didn't fly up enmasse and in the same direction like ducks and geese. They went in three different directions. These birds have a program not influenced by momentary panic. In the small bay on the east end of Picton, I came upon twenty to thirty ducks at their leisure, with one heron in their midst stalking fish. The ducks were loath to fly away. Those high and dry on logs just flew down into the water closer to the rest. I kept far enough away from them to
keep them at their leisure. Otters have been so scarce I expected to see no sign of them at the latrines on the point, but I did see a trail up to the latrine at the western end of the point and the dead grass at the point looked matted down. I'll come back in the boat and see if there are any scats.
September 15 I haven't checked White Swamp in awhile, and as is the case everywhere else (except at our Deep Pond) the water is low. The area on the south side of the road is dry and on the north side of the road there is a pool of water
and a hint of a channel leading into the swamp that looks to be 90% high and drying vegetation.
I walked around the Deep Pond and didn't see any sure signs that the beaver is still there. But everything looks to be in order, and I might as well sit out and wait to see it, rather than fuss over photos that might show changes in the dam and lodge. I must say, the pond vegetation is getting thin. Of course, it dies back at this time of year, but the beaver is doing its bit -- and I think the lack of beavers is helping to choke White Swamp with vegetation. I should pay more attention but the fall flowers are distracting. The light blue
asters look rather carefree.
I cut down an ash, and scavenged some burnable ash from the ground cover on the ridges. It was a cold day (another cold front that didn't give us enough rain had gone through) but humid, and sawing was sweaty work. Soon I'll be sawing to help me stay warm. So I made a quick trip to the pond I
stumbled up recently to see if the beavers have been active regardless of the bobcat prowling about. As I went over to the main channel of the pond, I flushed a deer, a large doe, and seeing her I didn't see the beaver. I only saw the wake in the
channel and the bubbles. The beaver stayed under water all the way back to the lodge, which proves that the channels in this pond are deep and clear. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a muskrat because I also saw leaves from a cut tree out on the pond. To inspect those leaves I had to go down to the dam. On my way I saw that the hemlock the beaver had stripped now had a gnaw in it,
and I saw that the elm they had girdled now had a deeper cut and another layer of underbark had been girdled off.
There looked to be more dead grass pushed up on the dam, and below the dam, I could see that the beaver took a strip of bark off a small pine tree,
probably to line the chamber in the lodge. Then I got to where the leaves were, and I could see stripped sticks next to them.
Pretty convincing signs of an active beaver. In my experience, my first encounter with beavers in a pond is often like this. Beavers are often shy at first. When I went back up the ridge, I found some strange looking scats
probably from the bobcat.
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