September 13 facing a warm night we went to spend it at the land, and, of course, I sat next to the beaver pond, this time, late into the night, from 7:08 and until 8:35 pm, which is about an hour and twenty minutes after sunset, which, at this time of year, is rather dark. No beaver appeared, and no signs of any fresh work. So to my complete surprise the beavers have left. Since none of the beavers I saw acted at all sickly, I doubt that they were all swept away by epidemic
disease. No signs of trappers or hunters -- not the season for either. My guess is that the boss beaver simply determined that given the number of mouths wanting to be fed that there was not enough ready food to accumulate a cache sufficient for the
winter. I certainly would have argued that case. There are tall poplars not far from the pond. As I left the pond, the moon peaked over the trees and I was sure I saw a ripple highlighted by moonlight, but no ripples came to the edge of the pond which
would have happened if a beaver had been in the pond. Then I thought I saw a ghost beaver, two glowing eyes and moonbeams reflected in the water outlining a tail. It was time to go back to the cabin. The warm spell has brought the mosquitoes back out
and the long wait was an ordeal, though I still can't believe that they are gone and that, perhaps for a long time, I will have to wait at this pond no more.
September 14 I went back to the beaver pond at about 8:30 am. Of course, there was no sign of beaver activity. I sawed some logs until the heat and mosquitoes made that seem like a silly thing to do. I took a photo of the beautiful beaverless pond, for all the good times.
Then I went back to get some boletes for Leslie, but the heat had bloated all those beauties beyond consumption. I sat a bit and noticed some nice false solomon seal berries
before the mosquitoes kept me moving. I cleared the trail there of downed trees and then continued down the moss valley, stopping frequently to photograph the array of mushrooms,
which were almost everywhere. Waves of mosquitoes were everywhere too so I didn't tarry long. I also kept checking the nearby bogs to see if there was any fresh beaver work. None. The bogs have water, but I was surprised to find so much burr marigold. These pools (they aren't really bogs) had been dry until that rainfall from Katrina.
I waited until 5 pm before heading out to the Lost Swamp Pond. I wanted to go while I still might see otters and then wait until the beavers came out. The wind was not good, swirling in from the southwest. I headed up the north shore of the Lost Swamp Pond hoping that approach would keep my scent away from any otters in the pond, but there were none there. I saw no fresh scats or trail on the north shore slope and, while there were scats at the old rolling area, most of them, I'm pretty sure, I had seen before. However, as I lay downwind of this latrine, the smell was so rich that I assume some of the scats might be less than two days old. So I waited, not expecting beavers to be out for an hour or so. There were mosquitoes here too, though not nearly as many as at the land, and I could easily
keep them at bay. Save for the constant chipping of chipmunks in the woods behind me, birds provided the first entertainment. The lone duck I've seen here before was here again and after swimming away from me, parked itself on a log did some preening. It has a white bottom and later when I looked at it through the camcorder,
I thought I saw a bit of a crest. I heard its brief croaking call, and admired its aplomb -- I think its a juvenile hooded merganser, a nice companion. I heard flickers and bluejays, but when I think the big bird that flew up into one of the dead trees in the pond was a black billed cuckoo. Not where you'd expect to see one, but it certainly was shaped like one. Then some phoebes flew in front of me. At 6:15 I stirred from my supine position and got up to look for beavers. I really don't think they are still in the lodge in the middle of the Lost Swamp Pond. Last year, by this time, they had moved up into the northeast end of the pond, and that corner of the pond still has easier excess to a range of willows and red osiers.
Last year's foraging pattern of this colony went like this: pond grasses in the spring and first half of the summer, and they lodged at the dam lodge, south bank lodge and lodge in the middle. Then they harvested the shrubs along the east end of the pond in the late summer and fall, and they made a new lodge in the northeast corner of the pond. Then they moved back to the western lodges in the winter and harvested trees on the south shore. So I stood and tried to see what was happening in the northeast section of the pond, and saw nothing, but it is rather far away. Then I studied the Upper Second Swamp pond. The colony there came nowhere near exhausting the pond grasses -- I think there are fewer beavers in the colony and there have been fewer over the years -- and there are shrubs and trees still to cut around the Upper Second Swamp Pond. However 7 pm passed without any beaver showing. I walked down to the dam, first admiring the sea of white asters right in the area I commonly ski down to get from pond to pond.
I think the tree cutting by the beavers gave this area more sun. I also had to admire the burr marigold. I didn't see any freshly gnawed sticks behind the dam, but I did see a fresh pack of mud.
Then as I studied the far shore, I realize that the stripped sticks that I though were part of a toppled tree were actually part of the roof of a new lodge. In the last few weeks the beavers built a new home, and it was already packed with mud. Then I heard some humming coming from it. As it got darker the mosquitoes doubled and the cutting grass played the lancet with my legs, so I turned to go. Then I saw a beaver come out of the lodge and it swam toward me and slapped its tail twice, which, given the state I was in, was sweet music. I will have beavers to study this fall. Then I went back to see if anything was happening in the Lost Swamp Pond. An osprey flew in and perched high on a tree above me. The duck chortled at me. A muskrat appeared ontop of a nearby log. I saw a boil of bubbles
outside the lodge by the dam, but nothing surfaced so I suspect it was a snapping turtle exciting the fish. Next time, I will check the lodge in the southeastern end of the pond. Perhaps the beavers moved there. I wouldn't be surprised if the beavers
abandon this pond, but it is so big and perhaps they can pull off the cycle again.
September 15 a calm morning, and, at first it didn't seem too hot, so we headed off in the kayaks and explored the bay just to the west of the south entrance to the Narrows. On the way I notice a half dozen cormorants relaxing on the rocks with the gulls. Only one black backed gull to be seen. There was a large flotilla of geese working over the water celery or wild celery as the book calls it, but might as well make it clear that these nutritious pods are in the water. The beaver lodge at the entrance to the bay on Murray Island looked like it had been
used. I couldn't get back to where I saw fresh work last time because there were some geese and a large congregation of mallards feeding, flapping and shaking in the water. The geese flew off but all but one duck stayed and they were a pleasure to
watch. The activity was varied, and quite sprightly, like their half assed courtship displays were just a way to goof off. Certainly no pairing or chasing about. They didn't mind us at all. However when we approached another group in another cove of
the bay, they immediately flew off. An osprey and a heron looked down at us from perches high in trees. The former calling with seeming good humor, and the latter complaining with loud croaks. The lilies are no longer blooming. Most of the flowers seemed to have been nipped off. There were not as many aphids laboring on the pads and only a few yellow jackets zeroing in on the sweets they evidently leave behind. I saw one very small pike. Some shiners leapt out of the water as we paddled along. Over on the east shore of Narrow, we floated over schools of small perch and then a huge knot of whirligig beetles all seemingly swimming around the same conundrum. As I entered South Bay, I saw some bigger perch, and noticed a few with white fungus. Two gulls also had a dogfight with the smaller always circling a few feet ahead,
until the larger gull used the pines on a small island to break the pattern of the chase and come at the little gull head on. That gull dropped the fish it was carrying and the big fellow flew off with its prize.
September 16 we went to the land to pick crops and apples before the predicted afternoon rain arrived. On the way to the apples along the road, I checked the beaver pond. A doe eyed me coyly as I walked in, but I didn't see the fawns she was protecting. Nothing new at the pond, and with the mosquitoes just as bad as before, I didn't stay long. However, after an early lunch in the cabin, I got bored and went back to the pond to sit. The wind had picked up thinning the hoard of mosquitoes somewhat. I stewed about my absent beavers, and then at high noon on this muggy cloudy day, a mink swam out of a burrow the connects the two sections of the pond, right in front of me. It hopped out of the water, and even though it surely knew I was sitting right there. As minks do, it made a show of going about its business, nosing over a hickory shell. Then before crawling over my feet, it slipped back into the pond, and dove. I got my camcorder out and hoped the mink would surface. It soon did and swam across the pond in a coiling serpentine fashion seeming in a hurry to get over to the lodge,
and into a indentation or hole in the lodge half foot out of the water. Then I heard a noise just to my left and I saw two balls of fur up on some twigs that cover the entrance to one of the many burrows. They jumped into the water
and two adult muskrats swam in tight circles and splashed the water.
Seemingly in reaction to that demonstration, the mink hopped up on the lodge, turned briefly,
then went up to the bare ground behind the lodge, seemed to roll in the dirt and then waved its tail in the air, as wildly as an otter. Then it disappear. The muskrats meanwhile dove into the water and one surfaced near the lodge and then another. One snapped its tail making a splash
as it dove and the other just floated,
no doubt prepared to drive the mink away if it came close to the pond. As far as I could tell the muskrats didn't dive into the lodge, but into burrows on either side of it. Then I saw a muskrat swimming over to the lodge from the far corner of the pond, as fast and as menacingly as a muskrat can, which is to say it left a deep wake for such a little animal. It dove into the burrows by the lodge, and then a baby muskrat swam out of the burrow where the original commotion had been, and swam over to a burrow a little further to my left. Then an adult
surfaced in front of the lodge and swam around the far shore of the pond. In late winter I saw evidence of both muskrats and a mink in this pond. The mink seemed to have two dens, just above the inlet and up in the first rim of rocks. I do not doubt that mink kill muskrats, but what I just saw demonstrated that muskrats who work together and show the grit can make a mink move on. While I waited for more action, I heard an odd clicking sound in the woods behind me,which didn't seem like a chipmunk, red squirrel, or beetle. I thought it might the gnattering of the mink. Then I looked back and saw that doe in the bushes nodding to get a better look at me.
After she moved off, I walked around the pond taking photos of where the action had been: the muskrats' twig-concealed burrow,
the chair where I was sitting,
and I hoped to get a photo of what the tail-wagging mink might have left behind, but I saw nor smelled nothing. I did notice several large piles of soft scat which I think were left by overfed raccoons or fawns, and I saw raccoon
tracks in the mud of the inlet. As I headed back to the cabin via the road, I flushed the two fawns.
September 17 we had another two inches of rain in the night and then when the last squall blowing in from the north quit, at about 2:30 PM, I headed out to look for otters. The TI Park ridge was alive with blue jays celebrating their
harvest of acorns with what sounded like their whole reportory of sounds. From the South Bay trail I took the drier wooded way up to the Lost Swamp Pond, pausing only to look over at the Second Swamp Pond, which was quiet. I angled up to the Lost Swamp Pond so that with the northeast wind I was in perfect position to see otters. However, none were out. I noticed that the beaver lodge out in the middle of the southeast arm of the pond did look like it had freshly stripped logs on it. So I moved closer to it, up to the last otter latrine before an impassable marsh, and yes,
the beavers are definitely using that lodge,
which is what I suspected. The otters have also been using the latrines along the rocks of that section of the pond, leaving some trails through the bright burr marigold.
The big rock which commands the best view of the whole pond had fresh digging in the dirt at the foot of the rock and then very fresh scats on the rock.
Some were syrupy black
and others had fish scales emerging from the goo.
Given how heavy the rain was last night, these scats were deposited since then. So I settled down for at least a half hour's wait. No otters appeared, but monarch butterflies working the burr marigold kept me entertained, though the clash of orange and yellow was never quite close enough. There were three monarch, and given the wind it made sense that at least one would be blown closer to me. Once one left its bloom and fluttered up into the wind, circled as if it was getting new bearings, then fluttered down and landed right on the bloom it had just left. So to get a photo, I got up and stalked one to within ten feet.
I also took some video. Since I was so close I walked down the surveyor's line and checked the Big Pond. Nothing was stirring there, but I didn't have a good view of the lodge where otters might have been sleeping. On my way back around the Lost Swamp Pond, I checked the mossy cove latrine, where there didn't appear to be many any new scats, maybe a squirt or two, and there was nothing new at the north slope trail, and only perhaps one or two fresh squirts at the old rolling area. I walked down to the get a better view of the new lodge along the north shore of the Upper Second Swamp Pond.
Thanks to the rain the pond was higher, and since this newly built lodge is already packed with fresh mud, these beavers are sitting pretty. Assuming that the Big Pond beavers are still up in the pond above the Big Pond, where I saw
them a month or so ago, then I have three colonies set for the winter. I have to check Meander Pond, which should be viable thanks to all the ran, and the eccentric Audubon Pond beaver who likes to drift out in the afternoon sun (probably worried that a beaver will move in from South Bay.) Needing more exercise I headed back to South Bay planning to check those ponds, then as I was just about to walk out of the woods along the south shore of the Second Swamp Pond, I saw otters roiling the pond. I dropped to my knees and enjoyed the show. At first there were only two otters, then another one noisily joined the show. At this time of year, I expect the pups in a family of three to fish independently, and that was the case with this family. Indeed I thought at one point the mother up on a log made a show of keeping one of the pups from climbing up on the log to be with her.
The otters did seen to gravitate to the deepest part of the pond, where the stream flows, but they also swirled around clumps of grass and had great chases through the shallow expanses of the pond pushing along waves, wakes, and pulsing ripples, with now and then some splashes.
Shallow as I suspect the pond is, less than two feet deep at places, they dove with tails waving high behind in what I thought were the shallow places. In general they rotated through the pond in a clockwise manner, and they did get fish. At least twice the fish were big enough to require some concentration, which is to say, the otter swam along head high chewing away. They vocalized more than usual, I think because they were moving so fast -- I witnessed twenty minutes of pure action. So when I heard a loud chirp, so loud that it seemed be coming from all over the pond, I thought it was just the mother responding to the excited, but weaker chirps of the pups. The pups twice seemed to lapse into their play mode. Everything seemed to reach a crescendo with the pups playing the mother chirping as they headed toward the channel leading up pond through the grasses. One pup, the smaller I think, climbed up on a log and, as I hear in the video clip, the mother chirped and the pup leaped off to join the others.
I decided to hurry up the ridge in hopes of watching them fish in the smaller upper section of the pond and then perhaps go up their usual trail to the Lost Swamp Pond. However, when I found a good shady spot and turned to check on
their progress, they had disappeared, probably into the auxilliary bank lodge about fifty yards up pond from the main lodge where I know otters frequently den in the winter. Evidently the loud chirp was a genuine alarm, probably because of me. The
wind was right and in my face but a bit too brisk and prone to swirl in contrary directions. Anyway, what a change: the pond once again became quiet and seemingly worth nothing more to any living thing than as a mirror for placid reflections. Of course I didn't resume my tour of beaver sites. My mind was still whirling with otters.
September 19 I headed off in the kayak for Picton Island, facing a light wind, and cruised under two groups of geese, 30 in one and 15 in another. As I approached the south cove of Picton Point, a young osprey dove from a low perch on a
tree just in front of me and, I am pretty sure, failed to get the fish it was after. It flew above me and then flew off. A handsome bird. There was no sign of activity at the sometime otter latrine back there, and no sign of activity at the beaver lodge. When I neared the point I did see some moss above a rock dug up and pieces dragged down on the rock. On the fringes of the clumps I couldn't tell if I was seeing fresh otter scat or wet dirt, probably the later, but there was an old scat on the rock. I could see the fish scales and bones. So this area needs to be
checked soon. I take moss dug up like this close to the shore as a good sign that an otter has been there. I didn't see any otter signs along the jumble of rocks in front of the old quarry, but from the kayak I was a bit too low to see every rock well. As I continued around Picton I saw no more dug up moss. The cold northwest side of the island would probably not be too attractive to otters. There were fishermen in this channel and two very large cormorants guarding it. Coming out I saw a cormorant on the rock between us and Goose Island, and on the rock between
Wellesley and Grinnel islands I counted twenty smaller, and I assume, young cormorants on the rock. They rested peacefully with an equal number of gulls, and one black backed gull, and a heron. In the Picton channel two cormorants flew high above me and it appeared that a circling osprey feinted in their direction to
check them out. Looking into the water of the bay, I saw good number of little fish, and noticed that the water celery there was getting old and gray. I tried to open one of the aged pods and found that it seemed tougher than greener pods. Perhaps there is a right time for geese and ducks to harvest this staple. Meanwhile back on the island, as I rounded the rocky northwest point of Picton, a mink kept pace with me as it scooted along the rocks. I noticed it was scarred, perhaps even oozing a bit, from a wound on its back just up from its tail. When the rocks forced it to swim, it hesitated and then, I thought, made faster progress in the water than it did on the rocks, but at first opportunity, it was back on the rocks and even climbed up a sheer face of rocks about four feet high, or four times longer than its
body. Really these mink should be called rock squirrels. I lost sight of it as I rounded the big rock at the point. Meanwhile the wind had picked up and thanks to the rolling waves, I had a quick ride home.
I headed out to the ponds at around 3 pm, once again hoping to see otters and then check on beavers. A front of clouds was starting to move in, dimming the sun but drenching of more humidity. With a brisk southwest wind, my strategy was to hurry up between the Second Swamp and Lost Swamp Ponds and park myself near the dam of the latter, and with the wind in my face watch the pond, unless of course the otters were on the lodge near the dam. They weren't there and a gaggle of about 40 geese was grazing, and, given my care in staying right to the wind, I was shocked at how quickly they flew off. Of course, it is still goose hunting season. Then nothing happened, and I even dozed a bit. Then I stirred myself and checked the latrines along the north shore and didn't see any new scats. It was cool enough to wear long pants, so I crossed the sea of tall grasses below the Upper Second Swamp Pond dam. Where the creek picks up below the dam I could see a path over, obviously made by the beavers, but I thought I saw some otter nail prints. The water behind the north
end of the dam was quite muddy, and there were trails off into the grass, but there was no beaver work in sight. In the meadow below the dam, I noticed an ubiquitous vine choking the pile wort and exhibiting a huge flutter of seeds that I had never noticed before. Either this is a new vine invading the area or conditions this year were perfect for it.
There were several monarch butterflies (some flew over me on my kayak trip) and I tried to get a photo of one enjoying the necter of the asters.
I went down to the ridge overlooking the bank beaver lodges, with a good view of the dam, sat, and waited for otters. Only two ducks entertained me. I forget to mention two ducks up in the Lost Swamp Pond. While I was sitting I noticed
that my theory that the otters the other day sought shelter in the auxilliary bank lodge didn't make much sense, as I last saw them swimming away from there. I went down to check that lodge which was still covered with pile wort and burr marigold, and the only scat in the vicinity was a berry-laced raccoon poop. Could the otters have taken that trail otters took last winter, up over the high ridge to the upper Third Swamp ponds. There were trails through the vegetation in that direction, but deer obviously made them. I didn't have the energy to go up over the ridge and check
the ponds on the other side, but I should do that soon. I saw a flower I hadn't seen before, much like the new flower I saw at the land, lady tresses, but not as delicate. Maybe a silver rod, judging from the book which says it is the only white species of golden rod.
I went down to the East Trail Pond and did a study of how ferociously the vegetation encroached upon this former otter playground, overshadowing the dam,
and almost covering the bank lodge.
I was disappointed to see that what little yellow flowering burr marigold there was in the newly drying sections of the pond was covered over with thick, nondescript grass. One thing I have to figure out is how easily an otter
family can get through these tall thick grasses. I think it must be impossible, but I have a suspicion that it might be a major activity of otters in a more or less dry summer. I'll have to figure out how to figure that out. So I turned my back on otters, and went to check on the Meander Pond beavers. Here the burr marigold is bursting out all over.
It seems to do better when the earth is very wet and partially flooded. I saw no signs that beavers had been in the east end of the pond, which is where they did so much harvesting last fall, even though the canals to their old work
looked deep enough. And when I walked around to where their recent work has been, I saw that the wood of the maple they had stripped had turned black,
which gave me a sinking feeling that they were gone. But I soon saw the muddy channel, and it being about 6 pm, a beaver was out in it gnawing away,
and I could hear more gnawing coming from another channel obscured by grasses. I waited a bit to see if other beavers would stir, which quite excited not a few mosquitoes. So I walked up to check the dam. There were no beavers there but the water was muddy
and there was some fresh mud packed on the dam, and a trail over the dam. Then I walked down the trail from a long canal in the middle of the pond
down to the grove of poplars they have been cutting, which showed the range of their techniques: stripping, gnawing,
cutting off and segmenting logs.
The amazing thing is that beavers have been up and down this valley at least four times in my experience, and yet these large poplars remain. I would say that their diameter detered the beavers over the years, but in the meantime they had girdled and in many cases cut, red and white oaks that were just
as thick and probably tougher to gnaw through. Beavers seem to have a genius for leaving enough behind so that they can come back again, though I always think they have eaten themselves out of an area. I continued on to Audubon Pond, and as I walked
slowly along the long causeway I expected a beaver, as usual, to come out a slap its tail. Not this time, only a muskrat swam by. I saw no otter signs there. The beaver evidently did cut down the ash on the other side of the trail and it must have fallen over nearer the pond. The park people cleared it off the path, but left the crown at the edge of the pond.
No sign that the beaver showed its appreciation. So just when I thought I had things settled, as to where the beavers are, I have to investigate whether a beaver is still here. As I walked along the embankment I kept trying to
photograph a fawn and doe, mainly to show how brown their fur had become.
There were some trails up from the drain in the pond and trails onto the grass covered mud covering the drain, but no otter scats around. However, at the bank lodge on the west shore, there were two relatively fresh otter scats. But, I'd say, not much like the scats I've been seeing around the Lost Swamp Pond. I went down to the docking rock along South Bay and saw a bullhead head just up from the water, which looked like an otter gnawed it off, but, of course, it could have been dropped on the rock by a gull or even washed up. I think there were some new
scats on the rock, but nothing major and nothing very fresh. I couldn't resist photographing a bit of butter and eggs peaking up in the middle of the granite.
And up on the trail, the clover had yellow flowers. There was no sign of activity at the latrine above the old dock at the end of the cove. As I walked along a huge flock of chattering blackbirds worked the trees along the shore.
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