August 1 to 4, 2003

August 1 headed off a little after 3 pm taking that always interesting loop from the Thicket Pond, to the East Trail Pond, to the Second Swamp Pond. We had another quarter inch of rain and mushrooms continue to be everywhere. Now I'll only photograph those that have been eaten and look interesting, like this one tinged green.

At the Thicket Pond, where I thought I was getting the vibe that the beavers had slowed down on their tree work, I saw evidence of major activity. Larger maples are being taken. One hung up and one fell.

Again rather than trim branches the beavers, I assume, ate the leaves on the spot.

Up on the ridge between Shangri-la and East Trail Pond, the tree work seems to have stopped, and there was nothing near the lodge down below. However, as I walked around the north shore of the pond I saw a wide trail coming from the ridge down to the area near the bank lodge. I went up the ridge and saw several red oaks that have been tasted and are probably on their way to being girdled.

Down next to the pond were piles of stripped sticks and some unstripped shadbush branches.

I couldn't be sure they were back in this bank lodge, but there is water enough there for them. The canals up to the third pond were muddied, though not filled with water, but I couldn't see any work up in the woods. Trying to tone down my otter quest, I saved checking the latrines for last and went to the Second Swamp Pond first. I sat behind the cedar a little above and over from the lodge. To my surprise a heron flew in and with a glorious creaking sound of its wings, like it was a tall ship under sail, it landed near to me but out of sight. A subsequent errant sound from me sent it squawking off. Two wood ducks were in the pond and hid in the grasses. Then a muskrat came out from under the middle of the lodge and swam businesslike across the pond.

I kept looking up pond for beavers coming down and kept seeing a flurry of ripples in the water. I told myself sagely that this must be reaction to the presence of a snapping turtle. Then I turned and saw a ripple by the lodge and saw a snapping turtle swimming slowly and eliciting absolutely no reaction. The other entertainment was the scurrying of the sparrows through the grasses below me, and then paired green darners lit on a branch in front of me taking a well deserved rest. I stayed until 5:20 and no beaver appeared. I did see what looked like fresh work in the area below the dam where I saw the beaver the other day. By this time last year, thanks to the drought, work was becoming centered around the lodge. This year they are still far flung. Going back to the East Trail Pond I saw one of those trees completely debarked by beetles, I assume, and only this one.

From second hand hearsay I heard a report of two adult and two baby otters in South Bay "frolicking." This could be the foursome I saw before, but I don't discount the family being in the bay where I notice a healthy load of shiners. This week I'll get out early for fishing and otter spying. In any case there were no new scats at the latrine and nothing of interest at Otter Hole Pond save the mushrooms.

The damp has also made the woods smell like I have never experienced. At one area between the East Trail and Second Swamp Pond it smelled like an electric train!
August 2 a humid and hot day so I took the boat over to South Bay after 4 pm. I have been keeping tabs on developments in the Bay, and I think the high water level will make it harder to find bryosoas, plus so far there are no waterlilies. The strange boating-environmentalist coalition we have here insists that waterfowl thrive on high water levels, but it is obvious to me that there is far less vegetation at the surface for the ducks to eat. On the way up to Audubon Pond I almost stepped on a black snake, that coiled smartly and rattled its tail in the leaves.

Up at the pond, I enjoyed the walk down through the thriving crop of milkweed, thistles and mullein on the causeway. One mullein was quite bodacious

with eight stalks for flowers coming up out of the plant. When I got to the bench, I could see that the beavers had been working on their bank lodge, bringing mud up on it.

I had a pleasant wait for them to come out. I heard one hum from below and occasionally saw some movement of water. But in the heat it is quite noisy with, I guess, the algae bubbling away. A painted turtle almost came out, then saw me; goldfinch, heron, song sparrow, all went by. Finally, something swam out of the lodge, and a beaver surfaced about 50 feet away and immediately commenced pounding away with its tail. Then the other beaver surfaced behind it, and while it didn't splash, it rallied behind the other beaver and they kept swimming away. Clearly there are only two beavers, and this time I got the impression that they were older, certainly one has an authoritative splash. As I got up to leave, after scaring away a turtle and two beavers, I was surprised to see a bullfrog sitting placidly on the mud pushed up on the lodge.

Along the trail to the Short-cut Trail pond I saw what I first thought was a cylindrical hardwood borer, but looking at the photo, I think it isn't.

The Short-cut trail pond remains a meadow, quite spectacular with the mullein punctuating a line of vervain

I checked Meander Pond which seems unused, though quite full of water. Up at Thicket Pond a beaver began stripping the trunk of one of the maples they just took down

and also stripped the maple they cut but that's hanging straight up.

They seemed to be on a program to strip the bark. However, I didn't hear any gnawing and fear that my frequent visits have put these beavers back on a night-time schedule. I could hear a thunder storm coming in but kept on my program to check on the beavers. I sat above the upper East Trail Pond lodge to see if I could sense anything inside. I couldn't, and the water seemed lower around it, and no signs of activity.

Going back around the trail I saw the white robin. It's back and breast are white, but its wings and head still dark gray. I should have gotten a photo but it had started to rain. Because of that I decided there was no reason to hurry back to the boat. I went around the pond and down to check for otter scats, expecting nothing new to be there. There were five fresh scats.

So I decided to sit and watch for otters who, I've noticed before, are not shy about coming out in the rain. I sat back to the tree next to biggest scat, and I had the camera brave the rain and take a close-up

This scat's smell soon inspired me to move to another tree further up the ridge to the west. I expected the otters to come out of the old bank beaver lodge near the rocks east of the dam, but they came, to my delight, from the west and when they got near the lodge they kept swimming and diving up to the dam. I soon saw that there were pups and adults, and they had no trouble negotiating the duckweed. The pups were half fishing and half playing, accompanied with a little growling. As they swam toward me I decided there were five. Despite the rain, I brought out the camcorder and then the digital camera. The latter didn't take very good photos, but one sequence shows the difficulty I had seeing them in the rain

I think an adult moves to the log and two of the pups stay about in the same place. Pups move quickly until they stumble on something they have to negotiate and that takes time for them. An adult only spends time eating. My video of this segment of their foraging was better, with stills to take from the video when they reached the latrine.

One otter kept looking up the hill.

They probably smelled that I had just been there but couldn't be sure with the rain which was getting heavier. Then they swam off to the north side of the pond and I soon lost them. The rain stopped and I hoped they would reappear and soon they did. I briefly lost them in a clump of grass in the northeast corner of the pond, then once again they came toward the rock and the dam. This time they didn't go toward the latrine but crossed over to the point where the big pine is and then fished along that shore. I moved up onto the hill and got some more photos and video of them. They did not stay close to each other. In the video I can only account for four otters, three pups, but I did count five. At one time I was taking video of two pups playing and then heard another growl about twenty yards away. Since this was their second time around the time, I got the impression that they knew where to go and the adults, for sure, fished avidly. As always I could never be sure if the pups' wild swimming was related to fishing or playing. Yet, they seemed rather independent with the mother only leading the way, unless I assume that every otter I saw munching while on a log was an adult, which I don't think was the case.

I didn't notice her feeding any of the pups, but, I must say, having the film of duck weed over most of the pond made every otter popping out of the pond water seem surprising. Thus I was prevented from seeing the method to their madness.

I had to get home to dinner and there is a certain honor in leaving the pond without the otters seeming to know that I was there. After the rain, I seemed to see everything else: a baby raccoon, a doe and a fawn, the usual flotilla of ducks and ducklings. I had a cheery word for all. My hunch is that this group of otters doesn't go out into South Bay, but their appearance in the ponds has been rare and somebody has claimed to have seen two babies in South Bay. We'll see. 

August 3 went out at the same time to see the otters and only saw ducks

the rains came too late, and heavier tonight.

August 4 no rain today and a pleasant evening so I went out to check the beavers. I went to the Big Pond via the first swamp ridge, in part to see if any beavers had moved down there -- I don't think so, and to see if amidst the plethora of mushrooms, old reliables like the black trumpets were out at their usual places. Indeed, there were some under the big white oak on the ridge above Middle Pond.

Not big enough for picking yet. The meadows around the swamps were thick with vegetation and thick with humidity. I sat at my usual perch next to the dam and observed that I could hardly see from the fog on my glasses. A few wood ducks scrambled away. Within seconds, with glasses off, I saw what I came to see. A beaver moved slowly away from the dam and swam up pond, giving no indication that it saw me. I sat longer, in part to stop sweating, and first noticed the whirligig beetles in high gear below me

and not far from them, a dead hatchling, which struck me as perhaps being a green heron.

I fished it out of the water for a better look.

I couldn't help but notice that for the first time ever my old vantage point onto the Big Pond was obscured by vegetation beginning with vervain.

I knew I couldn't cross the whole dam so I went across the spillway, pausing to look at the beavers' fresh patching

and to see a flotilla of geese, and then down to the little hill north of Double Lodge Pond. I think beavers have been through but I didn't see any work. My guess is that the beavers are still living in smaller ponds to the east, on private land, and that at least one comes down to check and maintain the old stamping grounds. I walked down to the canal on the north end of the dam and a mother and baby wood duck swam slowly out of the grasses -- still some babies around. I was all asweat when I reached the Big Pond and had to take my glasses off to see the ducks cut vees in the pond as they moved away from me. Then I saw some vees coming toward me from the far end of the pond. When one materialized into a body, I first thought it was an otter since it dove frequently and I thought I saw a flourish of tail. When it came to me I saw that it was a beaver, swimming quite fast around the point and then up into the eastern end of the northeastern portion of the pond. Moments later another beaver came around, and they may have been joining a third who came out as the second swam around. This was much as it was in May, and I think that here too, they have their lodge up in the small pond to the east, and come down to forage among the grasses. I wonder if the small ponds are preferred for raising kits? Then a muskrat materialized and demonstrated how meager its wake is compared to the mighty beaver. I heard but did not see a kingfisher, and an osprey. Going around the pond the whirligig beetles were thick just off the mossy cove -- twas ever thus at this time of year. It was getting dark but I am pretty sure there were no new otter scats on the north slope. I hurried over to the cross the dam that holds back the upper Second Swamp Pond and saw a beaver loitering behind it.

I think it had been doing some patching, and it knew I was there, paused and then, I think, brought up some mud and left some scent as it lumbered over the dam

and swam back to the Second Swamp Pond. I also went down that way and when I wiped my foggy glasses as I stood on the knoll saw a beaver swimming down below and then heading for the dam. As I walked away it splashed me. Last year with the drought I started seeing all the beavers around the lodge. Now the beavers seem to love taking long cruises through the pond and without seeing them it is now hard to tell they are around since, in these big ponds, evidence of their nightly labors is so spread out. Now it was getting dark, fortunately there was half a moon. I was hoping to find otters in the East Trail Pond, but all was quiet. I managed to get across the dam and squinted down at the latrine. I didn't see anything but smelled something. Using the flashlight on the camcorder I saw fresh squirt of scats.

I moved quietly on, up the rocks, but no still no otters. No evening chorus of birds, no whip-poor-will, the quiet season has begun.