September 8 On the way to see the dentist, I dropped Leslie off at our land, and had a chance to walk down the road and back. I didn’t notice anything new done by the beaver in the Deep Pond, nor the beaver or beavers in White Swamp, nor was there any activity at the Third Pond. Then I went down to check the Last Pool. The rain we’ve had has made portions of Grouse Alley muddy enough to see animal tracks.
But there has not been enough to back more water into the Last Pool. Some bur-marigolds are blooming over the grass in the damp pond,
but bur-marigolds can grow in shallow standing water but these aren't. Down at the old Boundary Pond, there are enough bur-marigolds growing to make a show.
They are pleasant September companions.
Meanwhile, the smaller plant that I expected to have yellow blooms, seems to be going to seed after its flowers never got much bigger than a dot of yellow.
No fun at the dentist and I left my camera and camcorder at the land so I didn’t have anything to record my rendez-vous with the beavers at the East Trail Pond. It cleared up nicely and to speed my way home to dinner I rode a bike over to the entrance to the state park. I took a bag to collect some black trumpet mushrooms and found them where I saw them a few days ago, plus off the East Trail under the oaks and pines where I see them most every year, and noticed them on the slope down toward the upper East Trail Pond. While it is a good year for them, they are not a large as usual. I went up on the ridge north of the East Trail Pond and tried out perches. I got there a little after 5pm early enough not to be discovered by a beaver already in the pond which has happened every time I came out here around 6pm. My hope was that that one beaver would come out as early as usual and that now a rambunctious kit or two would be tagging along. To make a long story short, I sat on the north ridge until 7 pm and no beavers appeared. So I had plenty of time to try to pick out the trails through the ferns and buttonbushes that the beavers have been using. Here and there I would see some stripped sticks in a clearing. While checking those channels, I saw two very quiet wood ducks, who appeared briefly and then remained secluded. I also saw two turtles. I thought the one on top looked like a Blanding’s with a domed shell. I couldn’t see its chin. But when it moved off the turtle it had mounted, that shell looked flatter like a painted turtles. The one time I saw Blanding’s mating, they were in the water, so this was probably just vying for precious space on a log. The red tail hawk made an appearance perching high on dead trees. A kingfisher flew into a low button bush and disappeared. I guess perching for the night. I heard and saw a pileated woodpecker. I heard frogs splash but no croaking. Then two human jogger came along the trail from South Bay. First they flushed a heron and as it flew eye level before me, I heard a large splash in the water below me, perhaps too big to be caused by a frog, but I didn’t see anything in the pond. Then two deer, one a well antlered ran along the ridge behind me and they seemed to adjust their speed to the fast approach of the joggers, going faster than I usually see them going, but then again they were much closer to me than usual. Then I walked slowly along the shore of the pond around the west end and then down to the dam. I saw plenty of fresh signs of beaver foraging. They are eating cattails and fan grass, as well as gnawing on oaks and maples along the south shore. A maple they cut fell into the water and I saw branches nipped. That was not there when I was here a few days ago. When I bring the camera I will have plenty of photos to take and perhaps can show how well managed this pond is. It dawned on me that the pond is the stomach of the beaver family, and in this pond especially, almost everywhere you see a process of digestion all for the benefit of the beavers. Yet, not seeing any beavers, the metaphor didn’t quite work this evening. Over the years this family has always struck me as well disciplined especially when it had to deal with narrow channels. That is probably the key to its survival. For the last 15 minutes I sat at the south end of the dam. There was a wide clear channel behind the dam, and then a wall of thick grass stalks that concealed the lodge and interior channels. I cocked my ears. In summer I thought I heard a kit whine. But nothing tonight, until I heard a rousing chorus of coyotes well off to the east. It’s hard to believe there could not be kits. This is a beaver paradise. Kits would be bursting to get out of the confines of the lodge and explore it. Of course, I am curious about the kits, because if there are not any, it means that there are no successful breeders in the areas I watch, for the first time in 17 years in my experience. Just before I left I heard some noise behind and turned to see a deer almost up to me, probably heading to the pond. Of course, it fled. Walking back through the woods in the growing dark, I continued to hear the deer snorting, and I heard a peewee.
September 10 I cut up the ironwoods cut down by the beavers on the west shore of the Boundary Pond near the lodge. On my way down I checked on the blooming flowers, and took a photo of some bur-marigolds next to the little plant that wouldn’t quite fully bloom.
The flower however has grown enough to begin to match descriptions in the guide books. I think what I am seeing is beggar tick.
I sawed logs at the foot of the steep ridge just west of Boundary Pond. While sawing I saw juxtapositions of flowers characteristic of the season: golden rod and bur-marigold,
And goldenrod and white snakeroot.
However, beautiful though the flowers are, I am beginning to find working beside the depleted pond a bit depressing. Perhaps I shouldn’t have taken a break sitting on a rock along the old east shore under the hemlocks.
More of them seem to be dying from being girdled by the beavers last year, at least the dead needles fell on me today as I sat. I had great expectations for beaver watching at this pond, which always picks up in September. After lunch I sat down in my chair at the Deep Pond dam, didn’t see any activity in the dam, but enjoyed all the shades of green displayed by the trees behind the pond.
The beaver here doesn’t leave many tokens of its activity. I did see a parting of the grass in the pond right in front of me.
Perhaps the beaver took a closer look at my chair. Walking down to the pond along the road I got a fleeting glimpse of four turkeys crossing the road. Then walking back up the road, I saw two turkeys crossing back.
September 11 In the mid-afternoon I had a chance to take a walk around the East Trail Pond. The weather was perfect for photos, bright sun, 70 degrees, and no wind. I walked to the South Bay trail via Antler Trail. The mosses and lichens are still doing well on the plateau and the grasses are dying as they should. I took the angle off the East Trail that brought me directly down to the East Trail Pond’s south shore and I got to work chronicling what the beavers have been up to beginning with their cutting and gnawing the crown of a maple that they cut which fell right along the shore.
The area of the pond behind that work is quite clear of vegetation. This might be the spot to look for beavers if I have to resign myself to trying to see them on a moonlit night. It is rather close to the trail. Walking down toward the dam, I saw one of the branches the beavers cut off the maple.
Then a few yards farther down, I saw where a beaver left another small maple branch out on an old stump from a tree the beaver cut last year.
As I walked along facing the shore, I kept looking back up the ridge to see if the beavers went up to cut any trees there. I only saw where they gnawed on the exposed roots of one the huge trees beside the pond.
The branches in the pond were new to me. I didn’t see them when I walked around the pond a few days ago when I didn’t have my camera, but it was relatively dark then. I did notice a flat grassy area convenient to the pond where there was a small pile of beaver nibbled leftovers.
That evening I did notice how the beavers came up from the pond, waddling under the trunk of a downed tree (a natural fall),
Gnawing on the bark on the underside and side of the trunk.
Of course, I also kept looking out on the pond, looking for what the beavers might have done there, and all I saw was water relatively clear of vegetation nearby, suggesting that the beavers have been eating what has been growing on the pond bottom, and, beyond that, thicker vegetation.
I assume that the beavers have been thinning that out too and my not seeing that well is a matter of perspective. Up on the slope down to the shore, I saw many low clusters of red berries, partridge berries I think. Evidently beavers don’t eat them.
A few years ago there was a member of this family that ate the acorns that fell from the red oaks along the north shore of Shangri-la Pond. There are some big red oaks here, but I will have to see the beavers to see if they are eating acorns. So many other animals eat them. I can’t see the remains of an acorn and assume a beaver ate it. I did take a photo of the trunk of a big oak that beavers have gnawed over the years. It looks like there is some recent gnawing.
As continued along the shore down to the dam most of the gnawing on trees looked familiar. I took photos to see if there might be changes later. I get the impression that the beavers ate what they wanted behind the south end of the dam and that, while they might swim down here to check the dam, they don’t do much foraging any more.
I decided to walk on the dam to the north shore of the pond. The dam was thickly vegetated which gave me courage that it wouldn’t be like a rather perilous walk I had on it in the late winter. While I was pretty certain that the beavers are still active here, I got indisputable confirmation of that when I saw where the beavers pushed fresh mud up on the dam.
About every 5 or 10 yards there was another push of mud. Some of them were smaller, perhaps to stop a particular leak.
Others were wider, with more mud pushed up on the dam, suggesting that the whole dam will eventually get a new lathering of mud and that on one particular night a beaver got a good armful of mud to push up at this particular spot.
There was a spot where it looks like a beaver gave more effort to improving the dam, cutting grass stalks to add to brace the mud.
Toward the north end of the dam, the water is shallower in some spots allowing a nice crop of bur-marigolds to grow.
However, the beavers know where the dam is and have a channel between that crop and the dam proper that they are keeping repaired.
I have a tendency to overestimate heights, but, that said, I think this dam is more or less 3 feet high and is holding back a considerable amount of water. I tried to get down below the dam to give a sense of that and couldn’t manage it since the vegetation was so thick below the dam. I did get a photo looking up at the dam which gives the half of it.
Looking up pond from the middle of the dam shows a relatively open pond. The beavers have eaten a good bit of vegetation here.
After I crossed the dam, I took a photo of the meadow below the dam. The pond the beavers fashioned is grand to me, but before 2005, the whole meadow now below the dam was an active beaver pond with three lodges and an otter family often in residence.
Once up on the north slope, I could look down at the lodge in the middle of the pond. It looked like the beavers might have pushed some mud on top of that.
But the time for doing that is a couple months away. With the camcorder I can get better close-ups, and using it, I could see that the beavers have not pushed up mud, but I think they have been pushing more logs up on the lodge. It looks more extensive than it was last fall when they built it, even though they have not cleared much of the vegetation in the pond around it.
As I saw when I came here without my camera, the beavers have cut and gnawed several trees on the high north slope of the pond. Here are photos of about half of what they have been eating. Beavers always seem of two minds when they address relatively large hardwoods. They both gnaw the trunk in a way that girdles the tree, and they begin to cut into the tree. It’s as if they need to eat a bit to get up the energy for the more difficult task of cutting.
I also get the impression that beavers can be content with just partially girdling, but, then as this photo shows, a bit down the slope, there is a large red oak trunk cut down and mostly stripped of bark.
This slope which has relatively thin soil atop granite is not that thickly wooded. Yet even here, everything the beavers cut down does not fall down. At least one tree was hanging up in a larger tree.
I’ve noticed that if the tree leans over enough it may eventually fall down thanks to gravity and the wind. Plus beavers can keep cutting it, but not in this case. The neighboring pine seems to be lifting up the white oak the beavers tried to cut down, a service it didn‘t render to several nearby trees. I wish I could see a beaver try to negotiate this lower section of the slope where one evidently climbed over several downed trunks to get to a thinner white oak still standing. I think most of the downed trunks were windfalls.
I didn’t see many signs of beaver activity right along the north shore. Back in the spring the beavers were most active there and also were using the canal west of the pond, but now that seems unused and the old trail leading from it is closed over by grass.
I assume that’s because it had gotten too shallow in the west and northwest ends of the pond. The last time I was here, I had noticed some trees gnawed and cut roughly along the East Trail that cuts along the south shore of the pond. I took photos, including the classic photo that asks the question, why didn’t the beaver make one more bite and cut off the little log left hanging from the stump.
They also found some large trees to gnaw.
The beavers seem intent on girdling the oaks
And cutting down the maples, though they haven’t cut many so far.
As usual, the farther from the pond, the thinner the trees they try to cut. The one below is on the south side of the trail.
That the beavers are cutting trees right off the trail is of some concern. If park officials get wind of it, they may try to kill the beavers or bust their dam. I’ve been watching beavers in this park for 17 years and while I put what I see on-line, I’m confident park officials don’t look at that. My policy has always been not to tell them what I see or anticipate how they might react to what the beavers are doing and try to persuade them not to over react. That policy has worked fairly well. They have largely left the beavers alone, but I always have a foreboding. Park officials who think it fine to slowly spread gray stone on trails, the better to ride out for their busybody work, do not have their hearts or heads in the right place.
September 12 on my way to saw logs I checked the Last Pool channel and saw that the water level in it is getting lower.
The mosquitoes are less bothersome now, so it is almost time to calculate how much dirt the beavers dredged to make the channel. As I walked down to Boundary Pond there seemed to be less need for calculations. The beautiful yellow flowers of the bur-marigold are probably at their peak here.
Nice to look at as I hauled logs from the beavers old domain to my own. Before we left our land for the day, I went to check for beaver signs at the Deep Pond. As usual I sat by the Third Pond first, just in case the beaver moved back there. Getting glum by the depleted ponds in the valley is understandable, the beavers have gone. But the Third Pond is more full than it has ever been at this time of year.
Still, I found myself getting glum looking at that, too. Watching the wind play on the water and following the gyrations of the whirligig beetles are not enough. Then, in the other side of the pond, I saw the head of something munching the vegetation, and it wasn’t a duck. Fortunately the sun was shining directly on that area and I could follow the activity by the reflections on the ripples, and then I saw the muskrat tail. Thanks to the camcorder I soon saw that there was another muskrat and it looked like it was building a grass lodge below a buttonbush (I think.) It was hard to tell if they were working together.
I saw one possibly angry tail splash. Muskrats usual collect the grass they eat as far from their lodge as their territory allows, which in this case would be the whole of the small pond. I waited for one to swim over near me, but they didn’t vary their frenetic activity near the bush. I didn’t want to disturb them by walking over there. These two might have just moved into the pond. I went down to the Deep Pond to check for beaver signs there. I have not seen the beaver the last few times I looked over the pond in the early evening, and Ottoleo and his friends didn’t see them when they went down at 6pm one evening, prime viewing time. The beaver does not work on the dam any more so I hoped to see something in the pond or near the lodge. Looking at the pond from the high slope of the east shore, it was easy to see where a beaver could have been swimming.
Just below the bank I could see the muddy bottom, a sign that the beaver has been eating the vegetation there, as well as what could be remains of its munching, pointing to what might be an hole in the bank.
However, when I walked around I didn’t see any beaver doings on the bank. And I must say, I didn’t see any new activity all along the shore to and including the shore around the lodge. But how much can one beaver do, especially when it has plenty to eat in the middle of the pond?
September 13 I set out to check the Big Pond and Lost Swamp Pond and then cross the Second Swamp Pond and get a look at the East Trail Pond, a route I have more or less been taking on a regular basis during which I usual had several beaver families to monitor, and, often beginning at this time of year, otter scats to enjoy. Of course, I had low expectations today, and was thankful for an early morning shower which at least gave a shine to the meadows which are everywhere swallowing the old beaver ponds. There was even a little water running into the rivulet that feeds the old pond now a pool below the Big Pond dam and a couple vigorous turtlehead flower plants were flourishing.
Up at the Big Pond dam the yellow bur-marigolds were all in bloom. As I learned during drought years, in the fall these flowers flourish in the soil left bare in the blazing sun. This year the water in the pond drained away. There has been plenty of rain since the end of July. So the bur-marigolds show how the pond shrank behind the south end of the dam.
That is the route otters often took to get to one of their favorite latrines here just beside the dam. I did see a trail in the vegetation, and, of course, followed it, which led me to a berry-laced raccoon poop closer to the pond.
There were no signs of activity in the pond, though I trust ducks and geese are getting use out of it -- perhaps not geese because the vegetation encroaching on the pond is so thick.
I walked up on the dam and kept my eyes on the bees and butterflies around the flowers. I was pleased to see that the wet late summer has prompted another blooming of the vervain.
Once again I didn’t see any closed gentian. The vegetation above it maybe so thick that I will have to get on my hands and knees to find it. The woods between the Big Pond and Lost Swamp Pond provided some relief from all the excitement. And for the first time this summer, I was not greeted by the cackling of a kingfisher or screech of an osprey as I went down to the Lost Swamp Pond. As the disposition of the flowers in the photos I took shows, the wind was blowing today. As I sat up on the rock above the mossy cove latrine, I noticed some ripples out in the middle of the pond going against the prevailing wind. That’s a sign of an otter foraging underwater, but in this case it was my old friend the juvenile cormorant foraging underwater. At first it went around the pond like cormorants typically forage with long stretches underwater and then a somewhat lackadaisical moment or two looking around above the water. I thought it was heading up to the southeast end of the pond, but instead it came back foraging just like an otter, surfacing frequently and keeping up its momentum by diving right back in the water. I hoped that meant the young bird had a chance to study an otter foraging in the pond, but I didn’t see any scats around the pond. The cormorant got up on a log nearby and it almost extended its wings to dry them off, but I was too close so it flew off back into the pond and, staying head above the water, cruised behind the dam. Meanwhile a green heron landed on a log in the water, much closer to me,
and I watched it stalk minnows, keeping dry the whole time and wiggling its tail feathers after it nabbed and swallowed something. Here is a video of the cormorant and green heron in action.
Then an osprey flew in and perched briefly on the big dead tree behind the dam. But only one osprey, not the usual 3 or 4 I’ve been seeing here. So I went back to enjoying the flowers. I saw a monarch butterfly feeding on aster blooms.
Along the north shore, after I sampled some berries that looked ripe but were sour, I waded into the vegetation enjoying the truncated north shore.
As I’ve mentioned before, from most angles this pond still looks big, and viable for beavers and otters.
But judging from the poop I saw around the pond, raccoons are getting the most enjoyment out of it.
This raccoon graced a spot where I like to sit when the water is this low. Right beside me I saw some beggar ticks, the flower that I was so slow to identify on our land.
The dam has not been tended. There apparently are no muskrats around to do even a little trimming. As for otters, thanks to their not rolling around on the old lodge by the dam, there is a thick clump of pilewort launched high above the lodge.
As I went down to the Upper Second Swamp Pond, I took a photo showing the encroachments of the bur-marigolds, thus showing the extent of water in the pond last year.
Then I was distracted by more monarch butterflies. One was enjoying the bur-marigolds.
I walked down the north shore of the long Second Swamp Pond which is fast becoming a meadow. This pond was low last late summer which is shown by the tall grasses with brown heads, while the yellow of the bur-marigolds shows where the water was then.
That there is much water at all is due to the relatively frequent rains of late. Toward the end of the July the old creek going down to the dam was dry, now it has some width and I assume even a little flow.
I didn’t go down to the dam but headed over to the East Trail Pond. That pond will be the center of my observations this fall, since it is the only beaver-story to follow so far. I didn’t make a complete walk around again. I only went up the south shore and saw that a beaver had cut and stripped the thin maple branches that they had left in the pond.
I hope that means a kit got busy eating what an adult had left behind for it. I noticed that a bitternut hickory the beavers almost cut down last fall had a healthy crown of leaves this summer.
The beavers continued to cut off logs from and gnaw on the maple that fell right along the edge of the water.
Nice hike. Then at our land I went down to check on the muskrats and beaver. As I approached the Third Pond I saw ripples and heard rustling in the saplings in the pond, but that proved to be two raccoon kits, who made a quick getaway. No muskrats to be seen. Down at the Deep Pond, I sat up on the high slope and scanned the pond for several minutes before the beaver swam right up to me pulling a small lily pad from the base of its stalk. I don’t think it saw me because it began eating the stalk below me, blocked from my view by a honeysuckle bush. Then it swam over in front of me, sniffing a little, paused, and then fished up another stalk to munch.
Then a wind gust rimmed the pond shore and the beaver abruptly turned and swam away seemingly in a fright. It dove briefly but then it came right back, swam right below me and kept its nose working.
It even shut its eyes, I guess, to get a better sense of me.
Once it got my measure, it made an orderly retreat, even turning around once to sniff again,
Before diving and, I assume, going back down among the thicker vegetation where it had been foraging.
Nice to see the beaver again.
September 14 I continued my current project of cutting up the ironwoods down by the Boundary Pond lodge that the beavers cut down when they were there. It’s not congenial work in two respects: it’s a long way to haul the logs back, and working near the depleted pond is depressing. I was hoping we would have had more rain to fatten up the pond a little more. Anyway, because the water continued to get lower, it seemed easy to get on top of the lodge, which, I must say, when viewed in an abstract way is quite an impressive object.
I am pretty sure this lodge was made so that it straddled at least two mossy mounds, old tree trunks, I assume, that had rotted and sprouted vegetation. Looking down from the top of the lodge, I can see dirt under some of the sticks. In the usual lodge built out in a pond, the beavers lard mud on top of the sticks.
I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to get inside this lodge, but I think if I did I wouldn’t find the usual chambers where beavers first come out of the water to dry off a bit and then climb up into a sleeping chamber. As I walked onto the lodge I saw water under the apron of sticks
My guess is that there are burrows in the mounds and water between the burrows, all covered by sticks. Perhaps, soon I‘ll see if I am right, or I‘ll wait to winter to make some hole through the sticks. Of course I got a good view on top of the lodge and took another photo of the main channel up pond, mainly because all the water is now duckweed green.
I also raised the camera and took a photo of the now green valley. Pretty, but I’d prefer having the beavers back.
While I was sawing I noticed one stump of a beaver cut tree towering over the pond showing that in the winter when beavers can operate on top of ice and snow they are well above the bottom of the pond.
Meanwhile, the tomato crop from our garden is quite photogenic.
September 16 I hoped to get out in the kayak two days ago, but there was a sharp wind, so I stayed home and cleaned up my office clearing away space so I could get out old photos of the swamps. Since I don’t have many “stories” to follow in the swamps this year, I will try to visit those spots where I’ve seen beavers and otters in past falls and show how things have changed. Then yesterday, it rained in the morning and I was busy in the afternoon. Today was cold and sunny and the wind seemed to be diminishing so I paddled to South Bay. Yesterday when we took a walk along the river, a lone goose was honking in the river just out from the swimming cove. It was there again today, in my way, as I paddled out, not honking as much. My guess is that its mate was shot during the goose hunt. While most geese flock up at this time of year, over the years I’ve noticed some pairing away from the flock. Geese have a certain dignity and loyalty to other geese and to the places where they breed. My hope for this paddle was that the river would seduce me devote more of my time exploring it. That has often happened to me at this time of year. I’ve been seduced into trying to find the beavers, otters and muskrats using the bay. But just like the last time I paddled here, I didn’t see any signs that those animals have been using the bay. There was a large and orderly flock of geese foraging the vegetation in the bay, which, because the water level keeps droping is rather easy for them to get at. I saw three heron in the south cove of the bay and they demonstrated that they still have a pecking order. Before I bothered them one flew up from the end of the cove toward the north shore and two herons on that share quickly flew off and the other took their spot. All the herons had their beautiful bluish plumage. The usual ospreys were not working the bay, and I only heard one Caspian tern. There were several kingfishers working the north shore of the north cove and it reminded me of when I saw them two months ago when I got the impression that an adult was teaching some fledges the ropes. I saw more schools of fingerlings in the water. I heard blue jays on shore. I forgot to mention that as I left our dock, I saw a flock of about a dozen continuing their flight from the mainland to the island, which has a nice concentration of red oaks. I didn’t see any bryozoa and conditions were perfect for spotting them. Going up the north shore of the bay, I didn't see any beaver work. I moved the flock of geese out into deeper water, as well as one duck. A pair of geese retreated higher up in the grasses. I crossed the Narrows and paddled around the coves along the east shore of Murray Island. About 6 ducks kept snoozing up on a rock. There were no signs of beavers using the old lodge tucked behind some big rocks along the shore. I paddled home with the wind at my back.
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