September 9 a cold front moved through with a few light showers and I headed off in the afternoon just as the last shower was moving through and the temperature dropped into the fifties. I went directly to the mystery of the East Trail ridge scat, pausing only to scold a catbird along the South Bay for not singing more this summer. There seemed to be less catbirds this year, which is hard to figure. Perhaps I did not put in enough time around the scrubby trees and bushes. Up on the ridge I first fancied that pine nettles covered the mysterious scat, but then I found it, still looking fresh, so fresh that I wondered if it was a fungus of some sort but when I poked, it seemed more like undigested intestines.
The photo gives a mottled look to it, not that leopard frog intestines should look like leopard frog skin! I didn't see any more of it around, and wasn't sure what that meant. I went down to the edge of the East Trail pond and while the larger of the scats there dried out, a smaller squirt remains moist and not unlike the scat up on the ridge.
I scouted the rocks closer to the pond and saw some rather old scat that had fish parts in it.
The pond itself remains covered in green duck weed, and the number of mallards enjoying same seems to be increasing, though they obviously don't eat the carpeting plant. When all the green mass gets warmed by the sun it must lull a lot of insects to sleep, a tasty bite for a duck. On my way to the Second Swamp Pond I flushed three small deer whose coats were getting brown. I've seen one tawny doe, and now these three yearlings. The rest of the deer remain red, but will soon change. As I came up on the pond a cormorant flew off from the water, and then a kingfisher flew over the area the cormorant vacated. But no otters, nor any fresh signs of them. I looked down at the lodge and thought I could see where something had wiggled through the thistles and vervain to make a bed,
but if something had, it left no scats or poop. Though I still have a date to check Paradise Pond, my mind is on otters and I decided that if the otters had gone up on the ridge, they then had command of all the ponds to the west leading to Audubon Pond where I have seen scats this summer. So off I went, but not on the ridge. I had to see what the beavers were up to at Thicket Pond where there has been so much tree cutting around the pond and up on the ridge to the north. As I came up the slight hill of the East Trail just before I customarily cut off to go to the north canal of Thicket Pond, a beaver just east of the trail looked up at me. I stopped and in that instant when I debated whether to take out the camera or camcorder, the beaver hopped back to the south canal of the pond. Usually beavers give their presence away by their gnawing. Not only was this beaver not gnawing but there was nothing recently gnawed where it had been.
The best I could tell it was nibbling on some viney leaves just off the trail. Then I tiptoed to the canal and saw a beaver there. The beaver that fled looked like a yearling or bigger to me. The beaver peering out of the canal looked like a baby. As I moved closer, it swam away. I sometimes get an allergic reaction to a mass of dead oak leaves, and as I ducked under the crown of dead leaves on a white oak the beavers cut a month or so ago, I had to clear my throat and stifle some coughs. Still, it wasn't until I cracked some sticks under my feet, that a beaver ran along a path in front of me and jumped into the north canal. It swam steadily away
and I moved on and then stopped when I saw a beaver just out of the pond just north of the canal.
As I cocked a camera in that direction. I saw a baby beaver in a closer path and it hopped into the canal, and then at that commotion, another baby beaver came scurrying down the ridge and into the canal. So, in a matter of minutes I had seen three babies and three adults, and the beaver north of the canal was still there worrying over grass. Surrounded by fresh gnawings on the wood, so fresh I could smell that warming odor of oak wood (anticipating the heat from the wood if I had it in my stove),
I was puzzled by so many beavers nibbling grass. I soon saw by ripples in the canal that a beaver was near by and a baby beaver swam up toward me as I stood at the end of the canal.
It climbed out and nibbled some grass, then got back in and came closer to me, seemingly using its eyes more than its nose.
A camera whirr didn't set it off immediately but then it lunged for the water making a big splash and giving a rather smart tail slap for a baby. This did not faze the adult still up on the shore. I stayed put because baby beavers have a habit of coming back to see if all that excitement was for real. And so in a few minutes the baby came back, nibbled grass and a harder root, perked up to regard me, got higher to give the nose a better scan of the horizon and then retreated in less of a panic.
It came back a third time, and this time I convinced it that I was real. As it swam away it slapped its tail a couple of times and there were echoing slaps from the middle of the buttonbush-embosomed pond and evidently some beaver with authority added an amen slap because the beaver on the bank headed right into the pond. I moved up the ridge, noticing that the large red oak with the most fresh gnawing had long ago been topped, probably by the ice storm of '98.
So the beavers will be disappointed if they are after tasty branches. The adult beaver on the bank didn't get far either and was soon back and about to worry the grass. I was curious to see exactly what it was eating, but a camera noise stopped it in its tracks and then it went back to the canal and swam back to the center of the pond. I waited another ten minutes, then took a photo of how the pond had filled up from the recent rain -- though the canals that got the beavers through the summer dry spell maintain their integrity.
I found no signs of otters visiting Audubon Pond but I did see that the beavers cut the ash next to the trail that they had been working on. It got hung up and now they are working on an ash on the other side of the trail.
They also cut another ash, relatively small on the west side of the pond
and it looks like they tasted the base of a large ash.
Porcupines taste trees too, but the books say they never bother with ash. The last times I was here there seemed to be little activity around the bank lodge but the beavers are active once again. Stripped sticks, cut stalks, and even an ash branch floated in front of the lodge.
Then down at the docking rock along South Bay, I did see otter signs, some small scats on the rock,
thick with scales, and fish bones and still a bit moist.
It's possible I wouldn't have seen these as I kayaked by the rock yesterday, but I sort of think I would have. So maybe the otters are now back in South Bay. I found the beaver work I saw from the kayak and took photos of the ash they cut and have just begun stripping as it conveniently bobs in the water,
and a few yards down the shore I took a photo of the long willow trunks they have gorged on.
September 10 I checked out the Deep Pond on the land, after getting a bite of apple from one of our trees. Judging from two large mud pats it looks like a beaver might be back.
There were no other signs, however. No pats of mud at the dam,
and the muddy bottom near there was probably fashioned by muskrats.
The boneset is turning a color and going to seed with quite a ferocious blush.
On the other side of the pond, the sneezeweed looks more innocent.
I also went down to the White Swamp otter latrines and beaver developments. I haven't been down there in a couple of months. The slope the otters and beavers had used in the late winter and spring was not overgrown, and some of the
dirt nearby looked worked over and I could see trails down to the water, but there were no otter scats at all and no beaver nibbled sticks. The swamp itself is rather lush with plenty of lily pads and quite a few lilies, good food for beavers.
The hundred of islands out in the swamp formed by thick circles of shrubs were surrounded by grasses that looked so thick I fancied it must be dry there. But look at the swamp from another angle and the wide channels through it look deep enough
There was a large flock of gulls flying above the middle of the swamp. I walked along the ridge down to the inlet creek. The grasses were high everywhere and the bare spots where the beavers and otters marked their visits were all grown over.
Yet along the creek, there was a beaver mud pat that must have been made in the past couple days. I followed the narrow creek channel up to the dam.
The pond behind the dam was just about empty.
I studied the brownish green water and saw nothing wiggling there. The surrounding mud was pocked with raccoon tracks. The pond may very well have gone dry and this water was just from the recent rain. There seemed to be only one channel in this pond which, I think, indicates that beavers have not operated here long enough to really make themselves at home. However, the dam seems quite solid, despite my suspecting that otters breached it last winter. I can't quite figure out how this pond functions in the beaver world. I hoped to see more recent mud marks and prints but I didn't, and the creek coming down to the pond was mostly dry. This paucity of water should make the Deep Pond which is partially spring fed attractive to beavers. We'll see.
September 11 Back from the land I headed off to Thicket Pond to see if the beavers would be so helter-skelter again. I saw a buck along the South Bay trail, a brave "two-point" that looked at me awhile. Not that I got a good photo, but I think it shows that the winter coat is growing in. Sun shining on its summer coat would have turned that deer red.
The wind was coming from the north which means it curls around from the east in these swamps so I walked below the dam of the pond and eased up the north shore hoping to see the beavers at the end of the canal. Instead I saw a beaver
munching away at one of the first canals jutting northwest, so I sat and watched that beaver.
At first it seemed like the same kind of craziness was going on. One baby beaver swam behind the munching beaver heading up the canal and a larger beaver pulled a leafy branch back toward the lodge. However, to make a long and enjoyable time spent there short, today there seemed to be more method in the beavers' meandering. I think they sensed that I was there and in response took their meals under the button bushes in the center of the pond. There seemed to be a line in the canal that they wouldn't pass. However, despite a tail slap in the lower part of the canal, there was still a baby beaver at the end of the canal who I didn't see until I got up there. I was amazed to see the baby beaver dredging up mud and packing it on a growing pile of mud on the bank.
The key to this colony's survival has been dredging, and evidently this is one of the first things colony members learn to do. I'm certain that this was a baby beaver because even though it operated in a narrow portion of the canal, it took me awhile to notice it. Meanwhile one of the beavers munching in the lower end of the canal kept looking at me
so I decided it was time to go. I also heard splashes in the southern reaches of the pond. A few wood ducks were in there but I think beavers were making the noise. I headed over to the Second Pond and crossed below the dam figuring checking latrines there would be sufficient if otters had come back. I saw no new scats but I did see a large branch that a beaver cut.
So maybe a beaver has come down to check things out, but there were no signs of nibbling or any mud packed on the dam. I angled up to the Lost Swamp Pond so that I came down with the north wind in my face, but there was no need for the precaution. It was as if the slate had been wiped clean at this pond, nothing was out on it, not even geese or ducks. I was left with admiring the beauty of the landscape featuring some ash trees just turning.
As I left the pond, six geese flew in. I crossed on the Big Pond dam, nothing new there except that something took a fancy to the pilewort, cut it but perhaps didn't actually eat any.
So to find otters, it is back to the bay and I should check the Picton Island latrines.
September 12 headed off in the boat to Picton just as the thin clouds from the next cold front were heading our way, and cooling the temperature just enough so that we could no longer think about jumping in the water. I haven't checked Picton closely for scats since the early summer. In July and August the bay is speckled with moored boats, but they are long gone now. I checked the older latrines on the point first and while grass was matted down there were no otter scats, nor were there any up in the old rolling area above the swinging rope -- though the dirt there and the paths to it were still bare. Since the swinging rope is chained to the tree, fewer kids probably congregate up here, but all that scamper up rocks along these storied islands are not otters. The newer latrine tucked twenty yards back along the point, where I noticed more otter activity in the spring, had a goodly number of scats, most of them large and grey with age.
There was a little pit of dirt right on the crest of the slope between the rock down to the water and grass up the hill.
This latrine still has a panoramic view of the bay
and tucked below in the other direction there is also a thick clump of trees.
I can see why otters would prefer this latrine to the more exposed one at the point. A few of the scats were still black, but nothing fresh.
Given how exposed this area is to the sun and wind, and our recent low humidity, I'd say otters had been here within the past week. I also saw a nice roll of grass below a scat. Otters like to scrape at their latrine.
One of our renters left a load of worms which I usually don't like to use as bait. But since the worm stretches out at least six inches from the hook, I can get a sense of how many small perch are about by the number of tugs I get. So I fished some worms off the point, and only got two tugs in about a half hour. I tried to find the edges of the grasses underwater, but that didn't seem to be the haunt of any perch. Then I went to a spot off the entrance to South Bay which is shallower than off Picton, say 6 feet compared to 12 feet, and where there are large patches of light green algae grass and here I got tugs on the worm every time I put it in the water and caught three perch in a matter of five minutes. So perch like their old spots, but all fish do disperse more widely in the river at this time of year. I wonder if that challenges the otters who stay in the river to range more widely? I will likely have to wait until the first snow and range more widely in the boat myself and discover more latrines. The few I know from the beaver ponds around South Bay, the marsh and bay iself and the few I know around Eel Bay obviously do not exhaust the otters' possibilities. I saw osprey over South Bay, but now they are rather quiet. The four or five herons I saw were all busy fishing. I got close to two cormorants and twice I thought I saw small fish in their beaks but it might have been a reflection of the sun because when I got the binoculars on them I didn't see any fish.
September 15 two days of rain, cold and wind kept me mostly inside. This afternoon as the sun tried to break out, I checked to see if a beaver was still active in the Deep Pond. I nibbled some apples on the way down, all tasty. I saw a sprig of pine on the high bank of the pond but since there are no small pine trees around, I assumed it fell from on high and was not browsed by a beaver. But down on the pond surface there were roots floating on the surface, and huge swaths of pond grass cleared away so the pond's muddy bottom shone through the water. This was much more clearing than muskrats could accomplish and over closer to the dam, where I had credited muskrats for clearing vegetation, there was another huge swath cleared, so a beaver must be helping out.
There was mud and grass on the dam, clearly a beaver's doing, but no real attempt to build up the dam at that low point.
The beaver will have to collect some logs to do that, I think. There were several long fronds from cattails cut and floating in the water.
Back on the island, I toured the bigger ponds, heading off a little after 5pm, so I didn't have time to tarry. I checked the old dock at the end of the north cove of South Bay and while there were no signs of otters, there was a mound of red ants and red ants with wings scurrying and fluttering.
I checked the mysterious scat on the East Trail Pond ridge and it had not aged in the least nor seemed at all dissolved by the rain. Some slimy otter scats can seem eternal, but I'm still not ready to credit this to otters. There was nothing new at their surprising latrine closer to the pond. Then I sat above the Second Swamp Pond -- no ducks, kingfishers nor osprey. A heron fishing by the dam didn't fly off until I headed to the dam. After ten minutes of enjoying the quiet pond, I went down to check the otter latrine below me. Half way up the ridge was a curious pile of fish parts that merged with a file of fish scales that looked like they might have been hurried through an otter's digestive track.
A few feet below I found two small black otter scats, not that fresh, and then two feet blow that a small moist otter scat.
So an otter or otters had been back. Then I looked down on the lodge and more than the seasonal drooping of plants suggested that an animal had been on the lodge.
I climbed down and found three otter scats, one quite big and meaty, so to speak,
and the others more modest, and just outside on of the holes down into the old lodge. This is the first time I've seen scat here this season. I expected to see scats on the dam, but I didn't. A beaver has cut and collected more alders and seems to be eating it right there on the dam.
They are also cutting the cattails.
Despite a beaver's visit, the dam has two little leaks, but how do you patch when the smartweed is so bouffant everywhere along the dam?
Once again I headed to the Lost Swamp Pond with great expectations of seeing otter signs if not the otters themselves, but once again, save for two small scats next to the dam,
there were no signs of otters. Either the otters have another latrine I've yet to discover, or this pond is woefully lacking in fish and pollywogs, and come to think of it, I have not seen many of the latter. As I sat briefly, a muskrat swam smartly by me.
I stood on the chance that it was headed up the slope to collect some dogbane, but it swam over to the dam and I lost it in the thick vegetation there. I gazed at the Upper Second Swamp Pond dam, which is higher without much fresh work on the dam. There were no otter scats on the north slope of the Lost Swamp Pond, nor the mossy cove latrine. When I moved off away from the pond a little before 7pm, a beaver swam up toward the northeast extremity of the pond. On the path through the meadow to the Big Pond dam, I saw a brilliant closed gentian.
There was nothing new along the dam. As I hurried along, a heron flew up from the eastern reaches of the pond. The lodge vegetation looked a bit compressed. Next time I will check the area for otter scats. The vegetation is so thick on the dam, it is likely the otters are scatting elsewhere if they are visiting this pond. I flushed several deer and with there new winter coats. They seem to glide like grey ghosts in the dark woods.
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