September 16 I headed for the ponds a little before 8 am, going to the South Bay trail and then taking the short cut to Otter Hole Pond -- nothing happening there -- and quickly continuing on to the rock overlooking the Second Swamp
Pond dam. The pond looked lower, which was a bit demoralizing
so with no fringes of grasses for otters to be foraging in, and thus taking a while to be seen, I headed up to the Lost Swamp Pond. I saw ripples on it, but from the geese slowly moving away from me. I gave the otters time to appear,
sitting at the end of the pond for ten minutes, then checking the north slope latrine. No new scats there. I briefly checked the trail to the Second Swamp Pond and took a photo of how low the water was there. Then I went up to the Lost Swamp Pond dam, and plopped myself at the rolling area which appeared unused. My
impression is that one pair of otters came and scatted here, then moved back to the Second Swamp Pond. The second pair of otters came here after they were chased out of the Second Swamp Pond, but evidently they haven't made themselves at home. While I
waited in vain for otters, the birds were entertaining. Flickers and blue jays seemed to be vying with each other for control of the high branches of the oaks on the other side of the pond. The blue jays exhibited a wide repertory of noises. Then a kingfisher cackled about. The geese stayed briefly before loudly caucusing and voting to leave. The wind finally picked up from the southwest, so I decided to cross the upper dam of the Second Swamp Pond and then go down the north shore of the pond. The beavers are cutting an ash on the way up to the Lost Swamp Pond dam.
In other years this was in the range of the Lost Swamp Pond beavers, but the beaver cutting it clearly came from the Upper Second Swamp Pond. I also saw a large birch sappling along the well repaired dam, which at least one frog
appreciated.
The portion of the dam that had washed out had just a trickle sweating from it.
I saw a bloated blue gill in the grasses that had been almost four inches long. Walking down the north shore I could smell the dank of the now exposed grasses. I stood above the bank lodge and took photos to show the diminished pond.
Then I went down on the lodge and took photos of the considerable piles of scat,
none of them seeming especially fresh. Something splashed inside the lodge and I cocked my camera hoping an otter would pop out, but nothing did and I saw no wake which an animal swimming under water in such a now shallow pond would
have to make. So I assume it was a turtle, or bullfrog. The latrine on the lodge was up from what appears to be their rolling area. I sometimes don't see such sanitary separation.
When I crossed on the dam, I saw several gobs of very fresh scat.
From a close-up of one of the scats, it looks like the otters are also eating insects. I think I see a wing part among all the fish scales.
So within the last 24 hours otters had been quite active here. I saw many tracks in the mud and they gave the impression of otters going up and over and down to South Bay. I checked the mud at the upper dam and there were no tracks. So if the otters are resident here they are confining their foraging to this now shallow ponds and the ponds below that have been shallow all summer. Or they remain residents of the South Bay marsh and are coming up here every day to forage. At the deep hole in the dam, I could see a little vortex over it.
It seems that some water will remain in the pond once the water reaches the level of this hole, and then, I suppose, it would be easier for the beaver to repair it. Unfortunately, this colony which I have been watching for years
doesn't have that good a record of repairing the dams of the ponds downstream that they have abandoned. Their last repair of Otter Hole Pond dam was perfunctory and when the otters breached the dam last fall, they didn't repair it. I headed over to the Big Pond dam and crossed it, admiring all the repairs, including a heave of mud garlanded with light pond grasses,
and the beavers let a trickle go over the dam feeding the stream directly below.
There was little happening in the pond and no otter scats. I did discover a wide beaver trail coming up from Double Lodge Pond, making a near traffic circle
around the nannyberry they were cutting. I only flushed one deer in this area today.
September 17 we spent the night at the land, and I was careful to limit my activities in the damp evening so I could watch the beavers in the damp dawn. The last time I was here, I only saw the kits. This morning I saw all three
generations and they put on quite a show. First I flushed a wood duck off the Teepee Pond, then from the first pond, I could hear beaver gnawing from the rather diminished bar of land separating the two ponds. A blue heron was posing at the far end of the pond. And as usual the red squirrels were alarmed and the wood frogs continuing their relaxed trill. I heard a beaver swim off into the pond, but still heard gnawing, and no splash. It was still rather opaque out, but when I got to my chair I felt rather exposed. Still no splash and I saw a beaver up at their feeding
place across from the channel between the two ponds. I also heard and barely saw splashing right next to the lodge. Then two kits caming swimming toward so I thought they might have been tussling but they separated as I finally got my camcorder out, even though it was still too dark to get good video. Then an adult beaver swam over toward me (I actually took the next two photos much later when there was enough light for the camera,)
and I worried that if it splashed, I would be left with watching beavers worried about my presence. But it swam up to me
and then dove and went into the burrow below me. As it dove a muskrat popped up leaving more or less the same burrow and swimming quickly and diving into the main lodge. Meanwhile the beaver doing the gnawing left its spot and swam into the lodge. There was a good bit of crisscrossing the pond to what purpose I could not determine. Then coming from the upper end of the pond, a beaver brought a pretty good size leafy bough into the pond. I expected it to swim toward the lodge, but it took the branch to the burrow near me, dove, but soon came back up, with a not so bushy bough as all the leaves were wet. It still did not take the branch to the lodge but went down the channel. I paid attention in case it showed me the way to a new beaver den in the Teepee Pond. It swam to the shore a bit down from old burrow I know is there, dove, but came back up again with the bough and took it to the feeding station they have off the shallow neck of the Teepee pond, not far from me but several honeysuckle bushes are in the way. Then a kit swam up from the
Teepee pond and swam over to where the other beaver was gnawing away. I heard humming, louder humming, and then some very loud, mean sounding hissing. So I got up to see better, and I did see the two beavers clenched. When I got the camcorder on them they separated and both swam into the first pond together. I think it was a yearling driving off a kit, but it may have been two kits. Later what I took as an adult beaver carried a branch through the pond and a kit tagged behind. The latter seemed to want to grab onto the branch and get a ride that way. But that failed and it dove and came up head to head with the adult. They swam head to head and then simulatenously dove into the auxilliary lodge. This morning there was more attention paid to the cache in front of the main lodge.
An adult dove several times and seemed to be fixing branches deeper in the pond. Meanwhile, the kits diving seemed to be looking for something to eat. I also saw an adult push a stripped log up on the little pile of branches and logs above the auxilliary lodge, but it then went on to other things. Another small muskrat also popped out of the burrow below me and swam into the main lodge. At one point I thought a yearling and kit were going to climb out on the bank together but the yearling took alarm and with nose in the air swam back into the pond, but
without splashing me. Finally I was splashed by one of the bigger beavers while a yearling, I think, was gnawing on a log at the feeding station in my view. The beaver that splashed swam into the Teepee Pond and the other beaver swam out into the middle of the pond, looked over at me, and within a minute was back gnawing
on its stick.
The reaction to splashing now seems to be to swim over and get a better sense of what I am doing, and I continue sitting quietly, the beaver checking on me goes back to what it was doing. I usually leave the pond around 8, and once
again, after an hour and a half of prime beaver watching, I prepared to leave just as a yearling was getting on my case,
splashing twice. The kits also swam over for a look at me, but none of them splashed. On the way out I checked the little ponds and they were muddy. We had a downpour in the night and the beavers evidently worked on their new little dam.
I went back to the cabin for breakfast and then to warm up went up on the ridge behind the cabin and cut down some dead ironwood for firewood. As I sawed a long long off one tree that I cut and that remained hung up in other trees, I say a lump on the bark that looked like an impressionic scupture of a tree frog. Then I saw its heart beating and went to get the camera.
I had to stop cutting that tree out of respect for such almost perfect camouflage that I didn't want to disturb.
September 17 a cool, cloudy, calm afternoon which proved to be good conditions for checking on things in South Bay. As I went by Goose Island, I saw an osprey with a large fish in its claw flying to the navigational cell where they nested. To my surprise there was a smaller osprey in the nest and I assume it shared in the bounty. The recent heavy rain has kept the water level up and the last time I was here, on a warmer day, the water felt cool, but today, with cool air temperature, the waters of South Bay felt especially warm. I kept up my search for
bryazoa, made more difficult because of the many yellowed dying lily leaves sunk in the water. I didn't find any. I didn't notice any fresh beaver work on the south shore of the bay, where one had been active. But the lodge beneath the willow on the opposite shore was built up with sticks and logs and even mudded over a bit.
Plus I could see more the of bark of the huge ground hugging trunks stripped away.
This beaver thinks it can winter here. Once beavers wintered in a lodge built on the remnants of the old board walking along the north cove of the bay, but that was right next to the channel carrying the water draining into the bay from the stream. It appears most of the water around the willow is shallow. Today I could only account for one heron -- that surly croaker. Of course, I also had an eye out for signs of otters, and just in the water in front of the will half a bullhead
floated. Its tail had been eaten but not with the clean cut I usually associate with otter eaten fish. I continued my search for bryozoa in the north cove and found none. One lily remains blooming. Although water is still draining from the swamps, the duck weed and water velvet have rebounded and seemed quite thick, as was other pond vegetation. A red tail hawk flew over clutching what looked like a large vole. It held it with two claws, not as dashing as the osprey's one claw clutch.
September 18 a cold front began blowing through in the night and the prospect of a cold wind kept me from heading off at dawn to look for otters. I headed out at 8 am with a bright sun promising to check the wind chill. I took the same route in as I took two days ago. I saw a heron in Otter Hole Pond. I sat on the rock overlooking the Second Swamp Pond dam and survived the cold for ten minutes. No otters appeared and the brisk wind with its frequent gusts made the pond surface too
exciting to watch -- all that energy and no otters can be depressing. I had even stronger wind up at the Lost Swamp Pond but could sit low on a sundrenched bank. Still there was nothing to watch but the wind and soon enough imagining otters didn't
suffice. There were no new scats, but the last scats had dried quickly and I was able to break them apart. I realized that their grayish color came from the sandy dirt the otters must have grubbed up when they rooted for shiners. Also some structures that I thought might be insect parts turn out to be grasses.
I wanted to check the Second Swamp Pond dam and Otter Hole Pond dam for scats, so I didn't cross the upper Second Swamp Pond dam. I did peak down there and saw that the ash was done, but as far as I could see, none of its many branches were trimmed.
As the Second Swamp Pond gets lower it is much easier to cross the dam. I didn't see any new scats today. In the deeper pools of water behind the dam, I saw some two inch shiners darting about. I took close ups of the two principal holes,
hoping that I might soon get a before and after sequence of photos after the beavers patched them dam. Certainly no sign that the beavers have been down this way.
After crossing the dam I continued on the East Trail Pond. I crossed the dam and got a photo of how placid and pretty the pool of water behind the principal hole in that dam looks.
There were no new otter scats, and the old ones are just about all washed away. I went over the ridge and down to Otter Hole Pond and crossed the dam, not so easy because the vegetation behind much of the dam has been growing all summer and is quite thick, and because this dam has a good bit of nettle and not so much friendly pile wort. I saw pollywogs in the pools behind this dam and managed to get views of the water behind it that, with the wind whipping up ripples, made the area look worth an otter's attention,
but somewhat to my surprise there were no otter scats on the dam. Still, the stream below is swift and deep. Perhaps there will be enough here to lure otters up in the winter.
As for now, it seems the otters are about to abandon these ponds once again for more productive foraging grounds. I'll go back to worrying about beavers. I shudder at what might happen if the beavers decide to winter in the small
ponds up from the Lost Swamp Pond and the otters breach the dam. I still had one more area to check -- the willow lodge. Getting back there seems easier and close to the lodge the beaver has cut some of the tangling trees. Before I got close to the lodge for photos, I noticed a hole in the marsh
that judging from the stripped stick next to it, the beaver evidently uses. I put a stick down the hole and it is over a foot deep and there is a tunnel out toward the bay. I still can't figure how having this hole makes life any easier for the beaver. I took photos of the lodge
and the beaver's recent gnawing some that I put in the entry for the 17th.
I didn't see any otter scats in this willow world.
September 19 I managed to get through the day without taking a photo. I saw a pretty good sized puffball but it was on Shoulette's side of the road -- we still picked it for eating, of course. I sat at the first pond and saw two
kingfishers tussle briefly and then saw a hawk dive for a kingfisher with talons extended -- the kingfisher cackled away. Hanni seems to be dumping carcasses again because vultures, ravens and crows were out in force. I cut up ironwoods and cut down a large ash. I snuck down to the Deep Pond and ate a couple of apples on the way. The pond seemed quiet still a few signs of muskrats. Goldfinches are sporting about and blue jays are about. A cold morning but no frost and a beautiful cool sunny day.
September 20 before resuming my work on cutting up the ash I cut down the other day, I checked the Deep Pond. Leslie saw a "strange scat" over on the far slope and thought it might have been left by an otter. So I toured the pond and first fond a lone muskrat scat, then a nice pile of them outside what appears to be a freshly dug burrow.
I could easily cross the intake stream and on the other side, the high side, found more muskrat scat and evident use of one of the old burrows. I also saw what Leslie saw, two scats laced with crayfish shell and parts on top of a large pat of mud that looked a bit pawed over.
I think raccoons left it. I see their prints along the shore here and there.
I headed off for the park ponds a little after 4:30 primarily to check on the beavers in the Lost Swamp and went by way of South Bay and the shortcut to Otter Hole Pond. I paused at the Second Swamp Pond which is still more shallow.
Then after pausing again to look over the lost pond,
I went on to the Lost Swamp Pond where, after seeing that there were no new scats on the north shore slope, I went and nestled just below the dogbane on the slope of the old, and now unused by otters, rolling area. I have seen beavers almost on command at this pond all spring and summer, but I haven't seen any sign of that fresh accumulation of branches that should begin about now. So perhaps the beavers have moved up pond. During a vigil of almost two hours, I saw a muskrat four times, probably two different rats. One swam into the lodge in the middle of the pond, where I hope the beavers are, then one swam over to me and briefly marked a log (my camcorder futzed-up and I missed a good video) then swam to the west end of the pond, Then I spied muskrats twice more at that end of the pond. Of course, there were other critters. Indeed I was startled that as I saw doves quietly appeared high in a tree before me.
A large gaggle of geese flew off when I came to the pond. Then a single goose flew over honking all the way. Three geese came in its wake and landed to spend the night. A few wood duck flew over too. No herons, osprey nor cormorant to be seen. Meanwhile I thought I heard a beaver hum from the lodge in the pond right in front of me. Then a little before 7, I saw something swim down from the upper end of the pond, the southeastern expanse, and while I also saw a muskrat over there, I'm pretty sure there was a beaver or maybe two, bobbing for and munching branches, too far away for me to hear or video it. When I was about to conclude that this proved the beavers had left, I heard more humming from the lodge in front of me. But no beaver came out as darkness began to surround me.
I went down to check on the Upper Second Swamp Pond beavers. On the way I could see that the Lost Swamp Pond dam continues to be tended by beavers judging by the piles of rich black mud pushed up. In the small willow choked pond there was a different story. As I checked the downed ash and saw that one small branch was taken I saw the wake of a beaver heading to the dam. The wind was unfavorable and it retreated before I got a good glimpse of it. Then I heard paddliing and then gnawing in the willow thicket right in front of me. Here is seemingly rich beaver habitat though I think, judging from how much of this
shrubbery there is, that beavers much prefer thicker fare. Indeed the eating this wee stuff would not make a gnawing sound. When I retreated up to the Lost Swamp Pond, a beaver splashed me. The wind was good for viewing the Lost Swamp Pond which made it bad for viewing the ponds behind me. Still there was no sign of beavers, so I went over and walked to the edge of the bank lodge on the other side of the pond which for months had sent beavers out into the pond -- nothing stirred, nothing swam out. Looking far up pond it was too dark to see beavers. So, I think the beavers have moved up pond. Perhaps the noisy proximity of the beavers in the upper Second Swamp Pond in part inspired the move because they are harvesting what these beavers should be getting. Of course, there is a quite contrary I idea, that I am not
dealing with two colonies at all, but just one and some of the beavers I've been seeing in the Lost Swamp Pond have moved down to the Upper Second Swamp Pond, but I don't believe that. The darkness awakened my old nightime hiking skills and I thought I made it home via the golf course it rather snappy fashion. I crossed at the Double Lodge Pond dam and didn't surprise any beavers, which means I best come out here one evening and see what is happening.
September 21 I've neglected checking the otter latrines on Murray and Picton Islands, detered by the volume of boat traffic -- though I have no reason to think the otters are put off by all the boats. But the boating season is ending, so off we went. I saw nothing new at all at the Murray Island latrine, which is closest to civilization, not even a trail in the grasses. At the Picton Island latrine I saw what appeared to be scats from the last month up in the grass where they scatted before
though I have grave doubts that it is scat, and some washed out scats
on a rock closer to the water, where I had not seen scat before.
So I think otters have been here in the last month. Then we went down into the bay of Picton where I had seen scats on the shore back in July. I finally got a chance to take photos of this area which strikes me as an otter paradise with plenty of places to den,
a marsh and swamp nearby,
and as evidenced by the heron and osprey still being around, fish in the water. However, despite me scowling on the shore, I didn't see any otter scats., though there were still some striking swamp knotweed blooms.
My first trip here many weeks ago, I heard a beaver humming in an old bank lodge. But on subsequent trips there were no more developments. Today there was a freshly cut maple sapling and a few freshly stripped logs.
We didn't hear any humming however, and no sign of work on shore. The most striking feature of this lodge is the fan of old logs under water
showing how iceberg like a beaver lodge can be bouyed by a heavy history. Otherwise the striking feature of the river was the uniform distribution of cormorants, not only congregating on most rocks in the river but flying off at regular intervals as we motored through their fishing grounds.
September 22 I suppose my best birthday, nature-wise, up here was in 1994 when we saw four otters in the Big Pond, then I saw two otters there in 2000, and two otters in Otter Hole Pond in 2003. But today I didn't trust my luck and
spent the day at the land where I appreciated the smaller things and a few massive rocks. It wasn't good otter tracking weather anyway, with a southwest wind often not strong enough to relieve temperature flirting with 80. When I did get home I splashed in the river which begins to get cold. Back at the land, while it was relatively cool I worked on the maple I cut down last year and more or less neglected. As I peeled back some wet bark I saw the usual millipedes and rushing mites, but I also saw three large black beetles. Two seemed to have the innards squeezed out of them and the other scampered away, down onto the ground. I
noticed a snail shell next to the ooze of one of the beetles,
and a notion took hold of me that the ooze was actually a slug of some sort escaped from the shell sucking the beetle, because I didn't think that my sawing had in anyway harmed the beetles. I even cut the ooze off the tail and as the
ooze stood tall, I thought I saw it move! Soon enough the snail came to its senses and crawled away, and upon further probing I could see that the ooze was not alive in the least. Then a red ant hurried up and dragged a long string of yellow something from the ooze. The beetles by the way moved their legs now and then but were more or less dead. I would conclude that inadvertently crushed them, but how explain the snail placidly feasting on the ooze? After lunch we sat at the Third Pond first scaring a large green frog into the pond and then watching it come back out as our talk was soothing.
Then I took a leisurely tour of everything, even pondering a wall of prickly ash and dogwoods
I noticed a second hole into the ground higher on the shore of the Deep Pond above the other hole.
No other signs of acitivity in the pond. Climbing up to the Lonesome Pine, I noticed some flat rocks loose in the feisure of a high part of the sandstone ridge.
As I worked my way through the Hemlock Cathedral I admire a little monument of renewal
and a tough looking bark-wise mushroom.
The bogs up there are mostly dry. The valley bogs still have water, and mosquitoes had revived near all these bogs. Up on the mossy ridge, the bog there was quite filled with water, which I found curious, as it usually dries out like the other high bogs.
I paid more attention to the rocks and wonder if there is a pattern to the folding and rippling. On the other side of the ridge the bright asters beckoned me. Then it was down to the poplar grove that the beavers still seem to be working on.
I measured the diameter of some to the trees they took, up to 7 cms. There are not many bigger than that. In gift mood, I took the log they left behind, a little over five feet long,
to the valley pond. Here is science for you, now I can see if they take it the rest of the way. Then I went up to the turtle and bunny bog which still has water and at least one vigorous patch of mushrooms.
I ended up at the First Pond and took a birthday photo of myself, and coined a poem
I have circled the sun
fifty seven times
and today I saw my shadow
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