July 1 The fledglings jumped out of the vireo nest behind our house. I tried to get video but even the adult is a small bird and hard to see in the shadows made by the leaves. We were impressed by how quickly the whole family left the area and aren’t sure how many fledglings there were. After we swam and welcomed a new renter at our house on the island, we dined at our land. Then I went down to the Deep Pond hoping to make sense of what the beavers are doing. The one that I think is the male seems to have been banished to either the well hidden clearing under the knoll or the bank lodge there. I saw a beaver last night that took a small sapling into the burrow in the southeast corner of the pond. That beaver acted more like the female I have known for a little over a year rather than the smaller newcomer that I think is a male. When I sat down in the chair along the west shore, I took a photo of the corner of the pond where I think the female has been denning, perhaps with kits.
Meanwhile I saw a muskrat in the pond, diving and swimming away toward the burrow in the dam. Then I saw the wake, shell top and nose of a snapping turtle swimming relatively close to me. When I see them operating under water like that, snappers look rather big and fearsome. It twice lunged up with its nose and hit a small lily pad.
I guess its trying to knock something worth eating into the water. Then I passed some time watching a spider make a web. Unfortunately, in diminishing light the automatic focus of the camcorder can’t see a spider and I haven’t figured out if the camcorder has a manual focus. Then I saw a beaver coming out of the burrow in the southeast corner of the pond. It swam right toward me, and seemed to be the larger female. Beaver kits like to hitch a ride on their mother’s back and while I didn’t see kits on this beaver’s back, her back fur certainly seemed roughed up. The beaver soon turned to its right heading for the dam.
My view of its forward progress was blocked by meadowsweet. Then when I looked more to my left so I could see it, I saw a beaver stationary in the pond. Then I saw the other beaver swimming toward it and just before the camcorder could focus on their meeting, the stationary beaver made a quick dive. The larger beaver didn’t dive and swam into the shallows east of the dam and found an already cut sapling to nibble.
After perhaps eating a few leaves off the sapling, the beaver dragged it all the way back to the burrow.
Actually in the video the diving animal looks like it could be a muskrat. But I had other views of it and think that it was a beaver. I have seen these beavers together before, so why did it dive tonight? Not sure, but I hope it is because of tension in their relationship arising from the birth of kits now being fed in the burrow. But for that explanation to hold, I’ll have to see some kits. A few minutes after diving into the burrow, the beaver came back out and dove into the pond. Now it was too dark for me to easily see it and I headed home. As I walked up the road, I heard the whip-poor-will and heard coyotes yodeling from two different spots off to the south.
July 2 hot days with no rain means that I pump water and carry it to the gardens, then I have a couple hours before lunch to collect wood which takes me down to the west side of the old Boundary Pond. Today I sawed and split the big maple logs which works up a sweat. During a break I headed for the shade under the remaining hemlocks along the east side of the pond. I figured that the channel had shrank to the point where I could leap over it. I had a choice of stepping on a downed trunk over the channel, or making the leap. I chose the latter and slipped on what looked like a big old dry root. My right pant leg got knee high in mud. I took my break and bird songs reconciled me to that silly goof. When I got back to splitting, I noticed a curious black, live snail on one of the logs I was sawing.
That one would be on a log that had been high and dry for 6 months made no sense. Then I realized it had fallen down on the log from my muddy pants. I took it back to the channel from which it was rudely wrested. With the heat we spend more time swimming back at the island. Then after dinner back at the land, I sat down at the Deep Pond. A front of sorts was moving through. We didn’t get any rain but we did get some beautiful clouds at sunset.
As usual I waited for beavers to appear, but other than the frogs and birds, mostly catbirds, I only had a brief glimpse of a muskrat.
July 3 After my pumping chores I went to check on the upper ponds on our land and to try to catch a bullhead to put in an aquarium for the summer. After glancing at the Teepee Pond to make sure no turtles or muskrats were out in it, I walked up the north shore of the First Pond. That pond is pretty much blanketed with pond weed. Usually muskrats, turtles and crayfish keep it somewhat in check.
However the pond is clear outside of a muskrat burrow in the northwest corner of the pond that connects with the northeast corner of the Teepee Pond.
So far this has been a good summer for things to grow. For the first time there is a clump of pickerel weed in this pond, at the east end of it.
I knew that my usual trail up to the vernal pool above the First Pond was clogged by overgrowing honeysuckles, so I decided to try to walk up the now dry channel from the First Pond to that vernal pool, but that had an even thicker barricade of honeysuckle shrubs.
So I ducked down and through the honeysuckles on the old trail and was surprised to see that the pool still has a good bit of water and it looked like at least deer had been there to gob up vegetation.
Then I threw my small minnow net into the Teepee Pond and while I waited for a bullhead to swim into, I checked the pickerel weed clump in the middle of the canal between the First and Teepee ponds. The blue blossoms seem at their peak.
There are two smaller clumps along the east shore and in them the plants seem a bit used. A fuzzy white caterpillar seemed to be getting its fill.
On another blossom I saw a pale spider.
Then I pulled up my net and it was empty. I tried another spot. I took a photo of the whole pond which was muddy and relatively clear suggesting that the muskrats and turtles have been eating the vegetation.
Meanwhile I caught three tiny shiner fry and three boatman insects in my net. Perhaps they’ll be the start of a good aquarium but one of the fry died in the net. So I concentrated on the pickerel weed. I went over to the rock I cleared a little trail to that gave me a close and panoramic view of the big clump of pickerel weeds on the north shore.
There were more bees, dragonflies and butterflies busying about the blossom than the last time I was here, but I didn’t try to take video of them. I concentrated on the aesthetics of the plants. I decided that they looked more beautiful when framed in small groups,
There is something unsettling in the individual blooming stalk. As a flower it lacks that aura of permanence that other more solid flowers have (which of course is a false impression since no flower is permanent.)
Then I noticed some bare stalks and wondered if what was left behind were the seeds.
I’ll have to see what is written about this plant. I fear not much because it is called a “weed” after all. But back to the aura of the plant in groups. I felt it a sacrilege to pick a blossom or a stalk even if it looked about spent.
While at the Deep Pond yesterday I thought I saw a trail from behind the east end of the dam toward a clump of shrubs which I thought included some willows. So after lunch I headed down to the Deep Pond via the Third Pond. I sat in the chair at the Third Pond briefly and looked at the crowd of tadpoles. Then I took my trail through the woods down to the Deep Pond. The water behind the dam looked muddy, suggesting that the beavers and muskrats were getting vegetation to eat there.
But standing there, there was no semblance of a trail on shore, just shorter shoots of grass. The photo below does give the impression of a trail, but there were no tracks in the mud.
Finally the clump of shrubs I thought included some willow didn’t have any. I think it is a conglomeration of nannyberry bushes which I’ve only noticed beavers eating once.
If there had been willows here, a beaver cut it all. I did walk up the high bank into where I think the beavers are living now in a burrow but I didn’t hear anything from below much less the whining of kits. Nor were there any signs of beavers having nibbled in the pond outside the burrow. I didn’t go over the knoll but back to the road and then down to the west side of the dam. As the water level gets lower neither beavers nor muskrats seem interested in the vegetation on the dam or now being revealed behind it.
The new flowers are tiny yellow ones on long leafless stalks, presenting another problem in identification.
In shady areas there is a similar plant with tiny pink flowers.
Our usual afternoon stay on the island was longer today because we were invited to dinner. So I had a chance to kayak over to South Bay. As I rounded the headland I saw two adult female mallards. One flew off and the other swam a bit closer to me. Then I saw a group of huddled ducklings on the rock there. I’ve never seen a mother duck so far from ducklings that small. I paddled into the south cove of the bay first and bothered a series of herons. There seem to be more around the bay this year and consequently they don’t seem to fly off as quickly, but they still haven't reached the point of simply staying put as I paddle by. The once promising spatterdock in the north cove still only had a few blooms. I didn’t paddle down to the shallow end of the cove where water lilies are everywhere and riding high in the water. I inspected the mossy mounds under the willow tree, my usual last stop in that cove. I didn’t see any otter scats. There was a possible clearing from scratching but I couldn’t see it well. There was one beaver stripped stick high and dry. I also saw a porcupine high up in the willow. Paddling out of the cove, I saw an osprey dive into the water and come up with a bullhead in its talons. I didn’t see any more beaver gnawing in the sprawling willow near the point of the peninsula, but I didn’t look hard for any. Rounding the point of the peninsula I saw a Caspian tern flying by. I enjoyed the wild rose-like flowers along the shore, as well as the purple loosestrife. The plant with a very tall stalk topped by a ray of smaller stalks with small pink flowers is also flourishing, wild onion? I checked the usual spots for otter scats and saw none and no signs of beavers or muskrats having been up on the shore. However I did see a number of lily rhizomes floating in the water so beavers might well be here even though they’ve cut nothing along the shore. The lilies in the north cove are at the peak of perfection. They are circled in large clumps that I could easily paddle between and around. There were generous white blooms throughout every clump. I’ll try to get a photo of this from the shore later. I still refuse to carry cameras in the kayak though it has been many years since I have tipped over. I paddled down to the old dock and where I always inspect for animal trails, I saw a dense wall of arrowhead plants, no flowers yet. I flushed an osprey out of one of the tall trees overhanging the north shore, as well as the usual herons. Then up at the docking rock latrine, I saw a thing of beauty. A female merganser with her beautiful brown head was up on the rock surrounded by several tiny ducklings. I back paddled and had time to soak in their beauty before they fell into the water in good order and paddled up the shore. I paddled across the bay.
July 4 after pumping water I headed down to Boundary Pond to collect some gifts from the beavers who left the pond about 14 months ago, several ironwoods dead from flooding. All of them good sizes for cutting down and using for firewood. In order to wear down my new trail across the valley I headed down the Ripple Rock Trail and then walked down the east side of the valley. On my way, I saw three bright berries on a low plant, red baneberry.
Much of the low vegetation in this area that was foraged heavily by the beavers has sports with fat leaves coming out of the stumps of the trees they cut. I saw a variation on that: shoots coming up from the exposed root of a stump, looked like elm leaves to me.
Then I noticed that large plant with the small pink flowers on a long stem, pointed-leave tick trefoil, I think.
Then when I stepped closer to the mossy covered ridge, I saw an interesting fern despite its dull green color, beautiful and another reminder of how woefully ignorant I am of ferns.
Plus there was something happening at the base of the fern and dead fronds seemingly coming up from the same base.
Then I saw a small plant with developing berries, with leaves similar to baneberry.
Then I looked up on the mossy cliff and saw a Solomon’s seal with two berries dangling down from the arch of leaves.
The moss covered cliff here is where we often look for delicate spring flowers, but now only the luxurious moss diverted me.
Some blue green moss at the foot of the ridge seemed to steal the show today as it reached a level of virulence to rival the other plants sprouting around it.
Mosses are something else I need to learn more about. Then next to a mossy rock I saw a spindly plant topped with small 5 pointed yellow flowers, identification to come, I hope, but I find the big leaved small flowered tribe generally hard to identify.
Given that my current project is assessing what changes the beavers made to the valley, this brief botanizing speaks to the trail of diversity left by beavers. However I think everything I saw flourished before the beavers came. I was in a patch of vegetation that had not been flooded. Looking toward the channel, the area that had been flooded looked to have low grasses.
Then I got down to work. I started cutting down the first dead ironwood I saw. The larger ironwood, in the left foreground of the photo below, has so far managed to survive the flooding when the pond flourished, though its crown is a bit sparse. The smaller ironwood in the right background with the saw angled in it is dead. The low ground between them has not come alive with vegetation.
All the dead trees here were not victims of the beavers flooding or gnawing. The two dead trunks near the dead ironwood had been dead for years. I couldn’t identify what species, probably elms or ash trees.
I’m not sure why the lower part of the dead trunks is darkened. There are two dead birches that the beavers killed by girdling the trunks to about the same height as that dark brown color on the other trunks, but I don’t think beavers had been up this valley before this recent foray.
As I’ve mentioned before, years ago several large trees were felled in this section of the valley and the trunks left behind became little mossy hills or rills.
Before the beavers came, there were small logs cut with a chainsaw littering the area. Here is a photo I took of the logs in August 2007.
The beavers used those logs to make a dam. Seeing logs like that suggest that humans sawed down trees not too long ago. However the photo below shows an old stump and thick log completely moss covered. So I think there was an earlier period of logging when larger trees were cut down.
In the background of the photo above, you can see the deep channel dredged by the beavers in the middle of the valley. If that hadn’t been dug, the moss and stump would be surrounded with water through the spring and perhaps early summer, and the ground now would probably be wetter. There is an alternative explanation for some of the logs. As the beavers dug the channel they had to dig through roots at the end of one log suggesting that that tree was blown over not cut down.
Some mossy covered stumps are puzzling. Is the one in the photo below too low to have been cut by loggers? Isn’t it the height consistent with a dead tree rotting where it stands? But then where is the trunk?
I think that’s winterberry growing out of the stump. That’s the only tree flourishing since the beavers left. Some of the mossy logs have been colonized by ferns.
Ever since we’ve owned our land, since 1998, coming down to enjoy these moss and fern covered logs has filled a summer’s hour or two. So far that enjoyment remains two summers after the beavers left the valley more dry. I should add that this section of the valley remains well shaded. I took photos of the shade but I was too close to show how the remaining trees, mostly large sugar and red maples, do that. The beavers did cut smaller maples which one red maple root has responded with a flurry of shoots and large leaves.
Finally I contemplated the burrow the beaver made through a rotting log and into the bank, at least that’s my interpretation.
Here is a photo of the entrance to the burrow, which when the pond was at its prime would have been under water. I really need a better photo to prove that the beavers really dug into an old rotting trunk.
Here is a photo stepping away from the burrow showing the mound the beavers dug into. All the root hairs in the burrow now are probably the thin winterberries flourishing in the rich soil.
Small trees are growing all along the burrow. Showing that the beavers did not dig into solid dirt, there are evident holes all along the burrow. The beavers used logs to cover two of the major ones. There also appear to be little holes at low sides of the burrow, which may have not been important to the beavers because most of the time they used this burrow those low holes would have been under water. They don’t seem wide enough for escape routes.
The biggest mound of sticks is at the base of a large living tree whose thick roots probably put a stop to burrowing below.
Soon I’ll remove those logs, but so far, save for cutting that one dead ironwood which I did do today, I haven’t monkeyed around with how the beavers left the valley floor. After dinner I went down to the Deep Pond. When I got there I saw a muskrat eating vegetation toward the middle of the pond. It swam off and I swatted flies and mosquitoes and listened to the green frogs. Just about when the bull frogs started rumbling in, just before I could no longer see what was happening in the pond, I noticed ripples coming from the far side of the pond, and then I saw one beaver in the middle of the pond swimming toward me. I’m hoping to see beaver kits and if there are any they might be at the age when they only get around by clinging to their mother’s back. From a distance I again saw what looked like a lump on the back of the beaver
which looked like the one I think is a female. But when she got closer, I saw, just like the last time I saw her, that her back fur was just a bit nappy.
As it got closer I could see it sniffing the air. She slowed when she neared me and then turned and swam in front of me, nose still sniffing, but now she was intent on something else. Swimming over to the shallows behind the east end of the dam which seems to be the best place now to get some roots or pond grass to eat.
Last year I watched this beaver come out around 5:30 pm every day and eat lily roots for an hour or so. Today it was soon too dark to see what she was up to. Walking back I heard the whippoorwill singing in the shrubs along the road.
July 6 we’ve only had a few brief showers in the past two weeks so the land is drying out and the ponds are shrinking. Even though there is still a good bit of water in the Third Pond, I see little ripples every where in the water and when I look into the sunlit portions of the pond, I see huge concentration of tadpoles. Even with a few storms in the next two weeks, the pond's days are numbered. Although it hasn’t dried up the last two wet years, usually it is dry by now.
Sorting visually through the tadpoles floating in the water, there seemed to be two kinds: some with long, wide tails and others with bigger heads and tiny tails.
The former are probably future green frogs and the latter, if they can survive two years, future bullfrogs. However I don’t think anything floating in this pond now has a future. I did see one frog, probably a green frog, that had almost completely metamorphosed.
Down at the Deep Pond, I inspected the plants in the drying flats that had been under water a month ago. There were several flowering water plantains.
There was a trail through the green grasses growing on the flat, most likely made by raccoons.
A fan grass plant was down behind the dam. Since there was a patch of undisturbed water plants behind the dam, I expect a deer was nosing around the fan grass. I am waiting for those water plants which look like small water lilies to bloom. I think they are the smaller northern water lily.
I suppose two beavers can easily live off the plants and roots remaining the pond -- more lily pads are popping up and I saw a second white flower. But if they had kits in the burrow would the two adult beavers seem so nonchalant?
July 7 After lunch I walked down to the Third Pond and as I approached I saw that a raccoon had waded into the pond and was still having a meal.
It was so intent on what it was doing, I was able to get closer and even sit in the chair next to the pond. While otters work ponds with their whiskers and jaws, and birds use their eyes and beaks, a raccoon works the bottom with its two front paws.
A blur in the foreground of the photo above is a large frog and I was amazed at how coolly they sat in the pond as the raccoon looked for food just a few feet away. Soon enough that one did jump. I soon saw frog legs dangling out of the raccoon’s jaws.
It looked much like the legs of the almost formed frog I saw floating in the pond yesterday. Meanwhile I was hearing uncharacteristically harsh calls from the catbirds who’ve been around this pond most of the spring and then I heard the loud rolling cross between purring and yodeling of an unhappy baby raccoon. Judging from the noise it made it kept running along the shore under the shrubs evidently unable to get into the pond and join its parent. I thought the baby raccoon's stress oddly juxtaposed to the consumption of so many tadpoles
and perhaps salamanders hardly as old as itself. The raccoon in the pond got several bite size snacks for every one thing it had to grasp and chew. It often had its head up and tail curled in evident satisfaction with the day’s meal.
The baby finally ran along the shore right below me but when it realized I was there, it clammed up and ran back around the pond. The raccoon in the pond ran off too. Then I studied the pond below where I was sitting. A few days ago I could study an odd hundred tadpoles floating in the sunlit water. Today I saw none and could tell by the silt suspended in the water that a raccoon had recently worked that bottom too. So I went to the dam where I could look out on the deepest part of the pond. The tadpoles were still there is great numbers
There were still several frogs sitting head high in the pond close to where the raccoon had fed.
There were also frogs sitting near me on the dam.
Before the raccoons came they were quick to jump when I walked by. Maybe they understood that I was the only thing keeping the raccoons away. Even so it was difficult looking the biggest of the frogs, a bull frog, in the eye after the slaughter I witnessed.
If I had yelled the raccoon would have fled. Still sitting on the dam, the smell of death was pervasive. And I knew the weather forecasts predicted little or no rain. All the tadpoles in the pond will soon die. Many were in the latter stages of metamorphosis.
Many had red tails, which the experts say are gray tree frog tadpoles.
Pity to see them sacrificed to the whims of raccoons and the weather. After dinner I went down to the Deep Pond. As I approached the pond, I saw a muskrat munching grass in the middle of it. Then I saw a snapping turtle thrusting its head up to knock the pads of the small lilies. No beaver. Often over the past few weeks as I’ve walked back up the road from the pond, I’ve scared woodcocks off the road, evidently getting a little gravel. I never had my camcorder ready. Tonight I did but the woodcock flew up from the grass beside the road. Then another flew up from the road and landed on the road higher up the hill. I approached with my camcorder running but it was too dark to see much as it flew off.
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