July 8 I had a chance to take a long hike on the island, and though the temperature was comfortable, it was a bit humid. No hint of rain though. I got the notion of taking the spur of Antler Trail that goes down to the South Bay trail so I could take some photos of the arrangement of water lily clumps in the north cove of South Bay. Along Antler Trail, I noticed that the berry bushes in the shade were doing better than those in the sun. But the honeysuckles everywhere were wilting, as were most knee to waist high plants except the yet to bloom golden rods. I went to the old dock, no scats in the otter latrine there, but I got a good view of South Bay showing how nice it was to paddle around those patches of lilies.
There were not that many flowers.
I saw two blue herons fly over the bay, but didn’t get good photos. There was a wall of arrowhead plants in the water where I used to see animal trails coming up the bank. No blooms there yet.
As I cut over to the East Trail, I saw a monarch butterfly lighting on a milkweed leaf. It was working a large patch of milkweed and the flowers of all of the plants were drooping.
I came down to the East Trail Pond taking my winter route off the trail which brings me down to the middle of the south shore of the pond. As I always do of late, I sat midway up the bank and waited for something. It was 4:30 which is usually too early to see beavers, but the last two times I was here I saw two beavers out between 5 and 6 pm. I was distracted by a robin and then I heard a tail slap near the lodge. There was a good bit of vegetation between me and the lodge,
So I was surprised that a beaver there noticed me. I soon saw something swimming from the dam but I wasn’t sure if it was a beaver or a muskrat. I also saw a human standing on the footbridge in the northeast corner of the pond. He wasn’t as well concealed as me so I assumed the beaver was slapping at him. However, in a few minutes I was delighted to see a beaver swimming out of the knot of vegetation around the lodge and coming right toward me. It came to about 5 yards off shore and then turned broad side to me with its nose sniffing.
Then it swam back the way it came, had a second thought, turned and swam back over to me. Somewhat playing peek-a-boo with me. A big tree trunk blocked my view though I enjoyed seeing how it worked its tail just to stay still with its head up. It seemed in no hurry to leave.
Then I heard voices coming down the East Trail behind me. The beaver swam underwater up the channel, surfaced, dove again and then surfaced just next to the thick vegetation in the middle of the pond. It faced the direction the hikers were walking in as they slowly and noisily rounded the west end of the pond.
I got the impression that the beaver was people watching. Then the girl in the family walking around the pond came down closer to the pond, and the beaver disappeared into the jungle of pond vegetation. The family also had a small dog on a leash not that I think dogs alarm beavers. I am always charmed when beavers I’m watching show a high degree of sensibility, but I worry that beavers get philosophical like that when their own lives begin to lose the impetus of purpose. I remember back in the fall of 1995, I watched a beaver watch two guys on an ATV who couldn't go up an old dirt road because the beaver dam flooded it. At the time I thought the beaver was confirming its triumph. However, the beavers soon retreated from that pond. Thaat watchful beaver is the only beaver I have ever seen with gray fur on its face and I never saw it again though as best I can judge the family it was a part of, perhaps the family it started, stayed in the valley another 10 years. Back to today, I waited to see if the beaver would reappear after the family left, but it didn’t. Of course the pond is getting shallow and frog bit is beginning to carpet some the shallows along the shore.
This pond has always been prone to get plenty of frog bit and over the years I have never seen it hamper the beavers or otters in the pond. At a flat next to the shore where both otters and beavers had scent mounds, I saw what I guess was a remnant of an old scent mound since there were no scats around nor stripped sticks.
As I walked down the south shore to the dam, I noticed that I could get a very good view of the lodge.
That’s because the cattails never grew up. Usually they make a thick wall here. I took a photo of the east south end of the dam. The water level remains high considering the lack of rain.
No signs yet of the beavers going below the dam to get the cattails down there. I headed up the ridge where I knew there is a gap in the steep rocks that I can climb up. When I got there I was startled by the end of an ironwood trunk recently cut by a beaver and hauled to the precipice of the ridge.
When I got up on top of the ridge, I saw the stump of the tree.
Then looking back, I took a photo that suggests the length to which a beaver came to cut that tree.
I’m not surprised a beaver climbed this high since the beavers here had cut many trees on the ridge north of the pond which is a bit higher. But ironwood is not one of the favorite trees of beavers judging from how much of it they leave behind. I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t haul this trunk down the hill. A beaver trimmed off the leaves and thin branches and that might have been enough reward for their effort. There was an old stump of a tree about the same size but cut by a beavers years ago. But that beaver may have come up from the old East Trail Pond taking a longer but easier slope up. I headed on toward the Lost Swamp Pond making a brief detour down the creek below the old East Trail Pond dam. The creek is dry, thanks to the drought. While I’m no longer seeing mushrooms, I did see a patch of squaw root.
I continued down the creek to where I usually see cardinal flowers, but saw none today. Maybe later.
I was angled down toward the Second Swamp Pond dam so I decided to cross the valley along the dam, betting the lower part of the pond was mostly dry. I took a photo of the view of the valley from the north end of the dam which gives the impression that it is all meadow.
But there are still grassless flats wet and with some puddles.
I could walk behind the dam most of the way
but thanks to burrows the muskrats made there are several wet and muddy spots right behind the dam.
As I walked along the dam, I could see that the vervain was well in bloom. I’ve never had to make a distinction between species of vervain because I’ve only seen one, blue vervain, but today I saw some white vervain.
It’s always fun being neck deep in vegetation and seeing a flower you’ve never seen before.
As I walked up the ridge north of the Second Swamp Pond, I took a photo what remained the largest of what had been a string of pond almost a half mile long.
As I approached the Lost Swamp Pond from the northwest, I saw a fairly large turtle up on a log. Only its head had the characteristic coloring. Its shell and legs looked stained with mud.
The turtle dropped back into the mud and water. The west end of the pond and most of the rest of it too looked shallow.
Of course the dead trees have always been there in the pond but without water the stumps of trees are revealed showing that 30 years ago the flat was well shaded. I could walk up the shore of the pond and got a good look at the rocks that for years were the sides of the pond. I expect to see granite on the island but these well worn and well watered rocks looked cracked and layered like sandstone.
Though let me be quick to add that I am no expert.
From those rocks I got a level view of the dam. The clear slope on it shows where the otters made their hole that drained the large version of the pond. Now the hot dry weather is taking the water even lower.
Yet behind the dam especially the water looks very deep. It might even be over my head.
And it looks like something is eating the vegetation there, muskrats for sure. Of course, I studied the lodge again. I have seen beavers thrive in less water than there is between the dam and the lodge in the middle of the pond. I walked around to the south shore to get the same angle of other photos I’ve taken of the lodge and the recent addition of brush on top.
Using the camcorders close up function I saw that green pond vegetation had been brought up on one section of the lodge.
I don’t recollect seeing anything like that before. Both muskrats and beavers haul out vegetation like that, but this looks a bit more extensive than what muskrats might do. As I was thinking that, I saw a muskrat munching vegetation behind the dam. The southeast section is low on water. The little dam cinching the pond has been revealed and parts are thick with vegetation.
I saw two geese families swimming and browsing out there. On a cooler day I’ll tour the pond and see what I can learn about how the pond was made by the beavers, and see what clues I can get about what the area looked like 30 years ago. I have a pretty good idea since I hiked through the area over 30 years ago but I didn’t take photos during those treks. Perhaps I will see stumps that will jog my memory. I headed to the Big Pond which while shrinking is still not revealing much. The vervain is lush on the dam and shore; goldenrods are blooming; cattails are green and tall. But the photo I’ll share is taken from the south end of the dam. Sitting there 15 years ago, I saw my first beaver kit hitching a ride on its mother’s back. The pond water then came up to my feet. Today the pond is far removed and thick with the leaves of pond weed.
As I crossed along the dam, I startled a deer who leapt high but landed in vegetation thick enough to hide it. I couldn’t see it move through the vegetation but as I walked down my trail below the pond, it reared up to get a look at me.
Then it went into the tall bushes. Walking through the meadow on Antler Trail, I flushed a fawn but didn’t get a good look at it.
July 9 after morning chores I checked on the Third Pond. There was no raccoon about feasting on amphibians. But the shallow pond looked like it had been churned up.
I sat in my chair that affords a good look down at the pond and I finally got a good look at the painted turtle that I’ve only had glimpses of. It first gave me the impression it was trying to climb up on the branches of the silver maple limb that fell into the pond,
But it stopped trying to climb up and instead swam about the pond. It frequently popped its nose out of the water, but kept on swimming propelled by the alternating strokes of its rear legs.
Then it made a nice twisting dive and swam back the way it came. It swam quickly but I wasn’t sure what it was after, maybe trying to get away from me.
Having had no success catching a bullhead or two in the Teepee Pond for summer pets, I tossed the minnow net in the Third Pond. I knew I wouldn’t bring up any little fish. I kept the net at the bottom a good while and only caught one tadpole. I caught several salamanders and crayfish. The pond is not shallow enough for me to see them standing on the shore. The salamanders seemed almost done with their gills. When the raccoon works the pond bottom with its front paws it is probably after crayfish. I wonder if they ever try to leave the pond. I always thought if I could understand the habits of crayfish better, I’d understand otters better, but I still have not made much of an effort to understand them. We have other small ponds that will probably dry out this summer. Before dinner I got a measure of the Peeper Pond at the top of our inner valley.
It has too much surface vegetation to see what is swimming there. Maybe I’ll throw the net in there too. I checked the Third Pond again, just before dinner, and was not surprised to see a raccoon getting a meal. It was not in the water like the last time I saw it but gnawing on large frog on the just dry sod.
I could see it pulling up the frog’s leg several times, but couldn’t get a photo of that. Then it briefly walked around the drying sod using its front paws to dig down much like it uses them when it wades into the water. But out of the water it could get its nose down too.
Then it waded into the water which prompted some movement in the frogs overseeing the shallowest areas of the pond. For a moment it seemed like it had caught one in its left paw.
But the frog wiggled out and then the raccoon ran off into the woods, probably noticed me. Raccoons are persistent predators, but from my observations don’t throw themselves totally into the pursuit of prey the way otters do. When foraging, raccoons don’t lead with the mouth.
July 10 during a break from sawing logs, I sat down where I could get a view of what remains of the Boundary Pond. In terms of the amount of water pooled there, it looked about the same as before the beavers came. Of course then there were so many trees, especially small ones, that you could barely see the water.
Some animals had left a trail in the mud. I saw claw prints of a coyote, maybe. And a trough perhaps made by a snapping turtle.
The channel that connected this pool to the channel that went around the lodge is about dry and now there is no vegetation on the trail and maybe a roving turtle has something to do with that.
The day was getting hot and my imagination was heating up to. There were precious few signs of animal life around these diminishing pools, and only a blackbird and several dragonflies seemed interested in picking off the bugs hovering above the moisture. Well, there was another animal signs, muddy water outside a possible burrow into the bank.
Possible burrow. I didn’t check to see. More like a deer waded into the water there and gobbed up some duck weed. Or why not some ducks muddying the water. These pools east of the lodge seem deep enough and just large enough to attract their attention.
I shifted my position toward the middle of the pond and looking back got a photo of what had been a small burrow used by the beavers. That part of the pool is now dry.
Looking over at the lodge, I could see that their east underwater entrance now looked completely open. The beavers had at least four entrances. After more dry weather I will check this out on a cool day.
The water is so low that the flats behind the dam present a two yard swath of vegetation growing out of the exposed mud.
The water still reaches a small section of the middle of the dam, evidently where there is a hole in the dam.
I was able to push a stick into the hole for about two feet. It isn’t a straight hole, probably not easy to patch. I think I’ll push some more sticks in it and see if I can’t at least slow the leaking down.
I don’t think that will make the dam good again. It is made with soggy humus without any dry mud and all the logs the beavers put on it could not weight the humus enough to keep the dam from leaking. I haven’t been down at this dam for a while. I noticed that the crowns of the dead hemlocks along the east side of the valley that the beavers girdled looked like a haze of smoke.
I had a good view of the lodge and the entrance into the lodge facing the dam looked like it was still in water.
I also took a photo of the dry area between the pools of water around the lodge and the pools along the east shore of the pond. If the area dries out some more I might better see how the beavers utilized the pools which predate their moving in here.
I don’t think there were ur pools along what became the west shore of the pond, but there are pools there now. I think that is where the beavers did most of their dredging. If the drought continues maybe I’ll be able to figure that out.
As is my wont in this beaverless valley, I am paying more attention to the bed rock. The ridge east of the pond has the biggest rock faces on our land. I noticed today that the sandstone slabs are rather broken up and one was dramatically on edge
Looking at all the jumble of rocks, I’m having second thoughts about trying to figure out how it all happened.
And it’s not just a question of ancient geometry as the ridge was buckled into place. There are many small caves to explore.
I might also move some of the dead logs that half obscure the drama and mystery of the ridge. I also saw a good front of ripple rock with a good bit of moss clinging to it.
Then I saw a slab of sandstone that appeared to have granite in it. I’ll study that another day, too.
In the evening, I went down to the Deep Pond and as I pushed away the low branches concealing the pond I saw, as I frequently have, a muskrat nibbling vegetation in the middle of the pond. It dove quickly and I walked around to my chair. When I parted the honeysuckle and meadow sweet along that path, I heard a great rush of water and soon saw that a beaver had been on the shore in front of my chair. When I got to the chair, it was swimming out toward the middle of the pond.
Then after cruising briefly in the middle of the pond, it swam back toward me, coming as close as it often does.
No doubt it was getting a whiff of me, but it also kept jerking its head up like it was skimming something off the surface of the pond for a meal.
I couldn’t see what it might be eating and perhaps it was gathering something just below the surface of this shallow part of the pond. Then it swam back in front of me and all the way over to the shallows behind the east side of the dam, a favorite spot for getting pond weed. It seemed to take a bite of something in the water,
And then it climbed up on the bank and started eating grasses and or small meadow sweet plants.
As I left the pond, I took a photo of where ther beaver had probably been sitting on the shore before my approach startled it.
The beaver I saw looked like the one I think is a female, the one that was here last summer, and I am hoping she is busy with kits. Seeing her out alone argues against that, but beaver mothers do wean quickly and I also saw a nipped branch of something floating below the far bank not far from the burrow where the kits might be.
So I can keep my hopes up.
July 11 I took water down to the tank that serves our lower garden and then before going back to pump more water, I took a peek at the Third Pond. I went to the dam where I joined a green frog on the now dry dirt bank behind the dam.
The water of the diminishing pond look stirred up suggesting raccoons had pawed their way as deep as they could for their last meal before retiring to their dens as the sun rose. There were still tadpoles swimming about, easy to see, but not as many as last time.
A dozen or more green frogs had assembled in the shallow part of the pond, heads up waiting for meals.
Not a bad life, if you don’t begrudge raccoons a feast, and I’ve seen no evidence that these frogs do. After finishing my morning watering chores I resumed sawing logs down along the Last Pool channel. I moved from the ironwood that died from flooding over to a yellow birch that the beavers cut down. As I approached a grouse did a wounded bird act, though she seemed to make a point of getting far from me quickly. I approached the vegetation she left with camera ready. One fledgling flew out and away too quickly for me to get a photo. It seemed pretty capable. I was working close to the “hut” the beavers fashioned that provided a burrow off the Last Pool channel. I finally got a pretty good photo of the burrow taken from the entrance along the channel. It looks like the beavers dug into a large and live root. I suppose that this was a convenient hiding place while they were digging the channel. But once the water rose, they had more digging to do.
I was able to get a better photo of the burrow because I moved away some of the logs on top of it that the beavers put there for more security.
There is also a pile of logs farther in the mound and thinking that they hid an extension of the burrow, I moved the logs and investigated.
But I didn’t see or sense with probing sticks any connection with a burrow from the channel. Once the surrounding area was flooded this top of the mound where one of the smaller trees they cut fell evidently was an area where they brought up branches on the dry ground and ate bark, twigs and leaves. This area was not flooded long. I’ve noticed that most of the stumps on the flats of Boundary Pond have shown no life yet. The stumps of the same trees cut where it had been dry have some shoots. On the flat area around the hut, an elm stump is throwing up some shoots with ferocious leaves.
After dinner I went to the Deep Pond to check on the beavers. As I pushed my way through the saplings and shrubs shielding the dam from the road, I saw a beaver swimming quickly away from the dam.
Then when it got to the middle of the pond, it turned back and came back toward me. I had moved over to my chair right on the west shore of the pond. It looked like the longer term resident of the pond, who I think is a female and should be caring for kits, but it had a bit more red in its fur which was characteristic of the new beaver.
After half sniffing me and gulping some vegetation, she went back to the middle of the pond, toward the far bank, and brought up a root to eat.
Then she swam down the east shore and went up on shore and first ate the leaves off a small meadowsweet and then cut down a taller one. She nibbled off the leaves while still on shore.
Then she swam back along the far bank, passing the many burrows whose entrances are above the water level and then dove. I assume it went into the one low burrow with an entrance still under water.
As far as I know the narrow leaved meadowsweet is a native plant, an unheralded type of spirea. This year it is growing higher than I have ever seen it, with some plants taller than me. Usually by this time of year when I look up the inlet creek I begin to see the joe pye weed towering up. This year there is a wall of meadowsweet obscuring my view of it.
Then I saw a beaver at the north end of the east bank quite a ways from the burrow the other beaver went in to, and my immediate impression was that it was the other beaver. Its eyes looked a little more hollow.
But then it brought up some roots to eat, just like the fatter beaver would do.
When it came down and swam right before me, I still wasn’t sure. This spring the small beaver was usually upset when I was around, but tutored by the beaver that is familiar with me, it began to accept me.
Then as it swam away from me it shook the water off its head, and shook up a wild ruff of fur on the back of its neck. The smaller beaver in this pond is the only beaver I’ve seen do this.
So I can confidently say that I saw two beavers tonight. When one went into the burrow, the other came out into the pond. Then to drive home the point that this was the new beaver, it slapped its tail.
I haven’t been slapped by the other beaver since last summer.
July 12 coming back up the road during my morning walk, of what promised to be a very hot day, I ducked down to White Swamp. I checked the beaver pond that beaver used, unbeknownst to me, last summer. The pond was low and there were no fresh beavers signs.
I went over the ridge and took some photos of the huge swamp before going down the slope and checking out the beaver lodge. The vegetation in the swamp is green and viewed from afar many of the channels out toward the middle of the swamp appeared to be choked with water lilies, though none are visible in the photo below.
I didn’t see any signs of beaver activity on or around the lodge, unless one could credit beavers for keeping the water near it relatively clear of vegetation. Right next to the lodge there was a little circle of lily pads and small buttonbushes. Only the latter had blooms. Beavers only eat the former.
Farther out in the swamp I did see three blooming lilies. It was just after 9am which is before some lilies show their blossoms.
Judging from my experience with beaver ponds, I would have to say that no beavers were around. But I have a suspicion that beavers behave differently in huge swamps. There is no dam to inspect and repair, and plenty of vegetation to lurk under. Since the beavers are less focused, they are harder to observe. I got back to work on some yellow birch trees the beavers girdled and half cut. The trees are dead and I am cutting them down for firewood.
I am not far from the upper pool of the Last Pool where the beavers had their lodge. Indeed while I worked in the shade, I could feel the humidity wafting down from all the lush vegetation in the pool now no longer shaded.
Connecting the contrasting areas of lush and dry was the now dry canal that the beavers dug over 2 feet deep in places.
My summer’s project is to figure out how the beavers changed the hydrology in this narrow valley.
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