July 24 to 30, 2003

July 24 this morning we had a monster rain, dumping three to four inches. It cleared up in the afternoon and after bailing the boats, I decided to motor over to South Bay avoiding many a puddle on the trails. As I docked the boat beneath the usual willow tree, I saw a striped snail, common, probably cepaea nemoralis, an alien, and this one was larger than most.

though much smaller than pictured -- about three quarters of inch long. I'm pretty sure these snails come out of the river. I headed for the East Trail and it soon became obvious that the first creatures to take advantage of the moisture were mushrooms

I knocked that mushroom over, but saw that others had been harvesting some, like this russala,

I cut off the East Trail so I could check up on the Thicket Pond beavers. I went to the spot where I last saw a beaver, and saw that the last maple cut had disappeared. I heard gnawing in the pond, and then loud humming deeper in the thickets. The wind was favorable for me to walk around the pond, which I did, hoping to surprise the hummer. Of course the pond had more water, once again flooding the exposed north side. These beavers must feel quite vindicated for the move they made to this pond. However, I didn't see the humming beaver, just continued to hear gnawing. I walked up on the trail to the ridge between the ponds, and studied Shangri-la Pond which now has water. I saw a small raccoon trot over in that direction but saw nothing stirring in or around the pond. As I continued up the ridge I saw the whitened bird again and when it flew off I think it made a robin's double clucking call. Looking at the poor video I made of it the other day, Leslie thought it was a robin, so a robin lets call it. The moist hill, with its pines backed by another dark cloud rolling in, danced with birds, principally phoebes and wrens and song sparrows. Kingbirds came up now and then but did most of their foraging down along the pond surface. I saw a larger brown bird which might have been a wood thrush. The rain seems to have limited the beaver activity. Backtracking down the hill, on my way around to check the otter latrines, I saw another white gray bird, a nuthatch. All the while I was searching for a photo to take to demonstrate the downpour. A puddle was too easy, so here is the brimming East Trail Pond dam

As inviting as it looked, no otters, as far as I could see, took the plunge. I went over the ridge and contemplated crossing the raging creek on a tree trunk

but I slipped with my first step and tried the rocks -- getting one foot wet by stepping on a clump of grass that turned out to be underwater made the crossing much easier -- and the rest of the wet hike for that matter. Across the creek mushrooms were out all over. I went up to the knoll overlooking the Second Swamp Pond lodge and the flood there, all gently swollen, hid what recent shore nibbling might have been done by the beavers. The lodge looked unused

but I knew the beavers were about. I gave myself the usual 15 minute limit on my vigil and just as I stirred to leave, a beaver heading downstream, perhaps from the flooded dam up there, gave me a splash. Though the wind was blowing my scent right toward it, I trusted that it would eventually come down to the lodge. But after three more splashes I obeyed its command and walked up pond along the shore. It disappeared, probably in the grass and then back to the lodge. I had been noticing quite a few frogs jumping in the grasses, inspired to roam by the universal wetness. Then as I came off the knoll I saw a frog not quite metamorphosed

It posed wonderfully and then hoped away into the pond. With my next step a frog unencumbered with a tail, seemed less capable than the other, flipping on its back and then with my help getting into the pond

It also had that little black bubble on its rear, perhaps indicating why it didn't seem so healthy. Going up along the meadow I was distracted by skipper butterflies in the milkweed, about six on one blossom ball, but when I got close, they all scattered. One remained

A milkweed beetle gave me a better photo.

The small upper pond was full, though not leaking much. It didn't look like the beaver had been there patching anything.

Up in the Lost Swamp Pond, all was full and quiet. No otter scat. I followed the north slope trail over to the Second Swamp Pond and saw something twisting in the water. It proved to be a muskrat, not a otter pup. The wood ducks were also out in the pond. I walked back to the boat via Otter Hole Pond through a light rain, ruining a heron's evening dining.

July 25 the plethora of mushrooms yesterday inspired me to go out on a hike with Jean, our resident mushroom expert. Since we stopped at every mushroom, it was slow going. First I learned about jars -- just another russala

Then the TIP ridge was shaded grassed teeming with white mushrooms

The next treat was a fungus on a fungus that creates the Hypomyces lactifluorum, the lobster mushroom

Then one I've yet to identify

Down along South Bay Jean showed us her chantarelle patch

Cantharellus cibarius, the chanterelle

and she picked one for eating, showing us the folds, not gills. I kept pointing to everything and a nondescript brown mushroom had an interesting twisted stem

Then there were the juxtapositions of mushrooms with other beautiful things

and in the puddles above the East Trail Pond, an evenly spread eruption of mushrooms

Then a bolete

and Jean showed me the tricks it can perform

and I got a valuable lesson, finding the poisonous look-a-like to the chantarelle:

the Jack-O-Lantern mushroom, Omphalotus olearius We had be seeing this all day and this was the best example of Trametes versicolor, the turkey tail fungus.

Of course, I had things to share too. I took them to where I had seen the chicken of the woods "fruiting" on a rotten oak trunk up on the East Trail ridge. Alas, the experts said the mushrooms were too old for good eating, though both Jean and Leslie took a hunk away from the trunk

Near the area where I had seen the red tail hawk, we saw the remains of a songbird -- good chance the hawk got it because I had seen one still flying in the area a few days ago

Leslie had to go home and tend the garden, so only Jean could watch my joy when I saw a very fresh otter scat in the latrine next to the East Trail Pond dam.

Not only was the scat huge and fresh but there were three little squirts with it and dead grass clawed away, which I hope indicates that an otter family is now resident in the pond

Of course I kept my eye on the pond as we walked back up to the trail. No otter, but a huge snapping turtle on a log in the middle of the pond

Then I took Jean over to see what the Thicket Pond beavers were up to. I kept looking into the thickets, ears straining, then I heard a stick break away from the pond, looked up and there was the beaver, chewing away on a maple, segmenting it in the middle so it could take it to the pond

It yanked in vain to get the leafy end down so it did some more quick trimming and then quickly took the leafy end of the sapling to the pond -- so quickly that the stills I tried to get off the video are blurred. Once in the pond, it didn't take it deep into the thickets, but methodically ate all the leaves as we watched

While it ate a mewing beaver swam up to it, looked small to me, but I can't be certain that it was a baby beaver. I waited to see if the beaver would come out for the rest of the sapling, but when it ate the last leaf, it swam back into the thickets. I think it knew I was watching, but didn't splash its tail. We continued mushrooming around the Meander Pond and it didn't look like beavers had been out around the dam at all. On the way home I checked the latrine above the South Bay dock rock where I saw nothing new. Hurrying along South Bay to get home for a late lunch I smelled something dead and walked over to the shore and discovered a small porcupine deflated by carrion beetles and other bugs.

This may well have been the young porcupine I saw coming down to the bay for a drink a month ago, when I last saw otters. The remains were too far gone for me to tell how it might have died. Certainly the willow it was under was not very tall so I don't think it died from a fall. Tomorrow morning I'll try to see the otters.
After lunch I went out in the kayak, facing a good wind and surfing it back home in fine style. I went to the western shallows at the Narrows and was surprised to find it largely clear of thick grasses, with several patches of handsome spatterdock and a few lilies about to come out. A floating flock of geese tried to look invisible as I paddled by; quite a few small fish swimming under me.

July 26 I got up a little after 6:30 and by 7 am was overlooking the East Trail Pond and soon quite disappointed in not seeing otters. Forty-five minutes later, with only one wood duck and one kingfisher seen, I was about to move to Otter Hole Pond, when a gust of wind from the east rippled the pond, attracting my attention to that side, and in the wake of wind scudded ripples was another sustained ripple, and I had my otter. It fished so quickly that I first thought there were at least two otters, but I soon saw there was only one. It fished smartly through the middle of the pond and then headed for the north shore and I lost it. I moved over to get a better view of the back portion of the pond and soon enough saw the otter swimming right toward me, coming from the eastern end of the pond. This time it got a large enough fish to sit doglike on a log sunk in the pond and chew away; then it went fishing again, getting closer to me, then I lost it, until I saw it scoot up on the shore to the old rolling area.

If I hadn't moved I would have had a perfect shot at seeing it rolling on its back, grooming itself and biting either grass and dirt or a part of its body I couldn't see. Then it hopped up a little above the rolling area, scatted briefly

and went back into the pond. It fished back toward the northeast and I though I lost it again, and I moved down closer to the dam. Then it resurfaced not far from where I was and started tearing a large fish or frog that it held in its paws. Again, it was on a sunken log, and several times seemed to drop its prey and then fished it out again. Such activity sent a crescendo of ripples from its bobbing body. After that bite it swam toward the beaver lodge by the dam and I couldn't be sure if it went into there or into rocks behind the lodge.

I'd like to be calling this otter "she" and my hunch is that because she was small, and because she returned to where she had come from, that she is indeed the mother of otter pups left sleeping in the lodge. I've seen this often enough. If the otter was grouped with the touring males it's hard to think it would come out alone. Of course I can't be sure until I see her a few more times. I went down to the latrine and there was nothing new there. I did walk back so I could see Otter Hole Pond, quite full but quiet. Water is still draining from the huge rainfall. 

July 28 more rain yesterday, principally two mighty squalls. This morning I took CJ and Andy for a short hike. We motored over to South Bay, where the sight for sore eyes was a common tern perched on an empty plastic gallon jug in such a way that as we approached it we wondered if it was a pale loon! Oh, for good eyes again. I took them up the East Trail to the East Trail pond. At the foot of the trail we heard then saw two red tail hawks, and then a third appeared, helping confirm that they nested in that neck of the valley. No otters out, but the rolling area on trail up the ridge was a bit bigger.

I tried to picture otters rolling and then hopping up hill to scat and sure enough about six feet up the trail were three, perhaps four, fresh scats.

Doubt arises because I stepped into one small pile. A close up reveals bones and scales.

This is more confirmation that a family is here, but time will tell. The white flowers are popping up out of the pond from the small lily like pond plants, European frogbit, I think, released in Ottawa in 1932 and spreading ever since,

towering over the duckweed. Then I took them up, down and around to see if the Thicket Pond beavers were out. We heard nothing but saw their recent work. The tree was hung up on another tree,

and I did the beavers a good turn by bringing it down. Of course, there were mushrooms all over and evidence that others appreciate them.

On the way back to the boat, we heard two osprey and saw one.
July 29 went out to see the otters (I hoped) and hurried to and up the East Trail, only pausing to photograph a dead mouse,

but was too late to see an otter. There were fresh scats

in the latrine and more evidence of rolling around,

but no otters in the pond. I had to content myself with the antics of the kingfishers. First one noisily dove into the pond at least a dozen times. I spied on it through the monocular when I could and only once saw it catch a shiner. Then another kingfisher flew in and they chased each other a good bit, though it didn't seem to be for keeps. I checked the old latrine where I saw the otter scat the other day, didn't see any scat where it had wagged its tail. Saw some other flattened scat that might have been from a raccoon. I had to be back home at 11 so only had time to check on the Thicket Pond. Again, there was no gnawing in the pond, and the sapling I brought down for them had not been stripped, save for some leaves but deer could have done that. I walked down to the dam and noticed their picking and choosing among the clumps of maples

How does a tree lose its savor for beavers? Of course, mushrooms continue popping out; and what would be wrong if these orange buttons overtook the world

As for the otters, I'll have to get out at dawn.

July 30 I got to the East Trail Pond a little after seven, and dawn was slow in coming because of a brief squall. I hoped this would assure success in seeing otters, but I was wrong. The quiet pond looked promising because much of the duck weed was broken up, but evidently that was from the rain or beavers, because there was no new scat nor new rolling down by the dam. I walked up and along the ridge to get a look at Otter Hole Pond, and all was quiet there. Then I went and sat on the east side of the dam. The flat rock under the big oak was dry. A heron and kingfishers flew by; a couple wood ducks flew in; but no otters. It takes me about an hour to get over missing them. The beautiful morning finally gets to me and I open my eyes to other things, especially a butterfly that lit on dead tree in front of me, an angelwing, but I'm not sure which.

The shad bush that I had admired in the early spring, that had been cut a year ago but still sported a large flowering branch, has now lost the branch to the beavers.

I had not been over here in a few weeks. I noticed a fresh trail up the wet grass and at the foot of it were crossed beaver sticks.

I didn't see any otter scats around the old bank beaver lodge, where I think they may be staying. I did see bees on the mullein and saw why its petals fall. A bee knocked one flower off. As for the bees, I saw two with a tiny orange bubble of pollen on them near their back leg.

I decided to check on the Lost Swamp Pond next, so went back up the hill and into woods. No signs that the beavers ventured up there. I walked along the high rock rib of the ridge,

a route we used to prize when out object in hiking was to keep our shoes dry, which was partially my object until the sun dried off the morning rain. The rock ends just above where the Second Swamp Pond beavers had been trying to down a poplar. Since I last saw it they had gnawed their last cut some more -- evidently tough going because of a knot there, but gave up.

All they had to do was cut the birch it was hung up on, but they didn't. The upper Second Swamp Pond dam has been tended. I could see the beaver's mark in the mud and fresh dead grasses (if such a thing can be) had been pushed up along the dam.

Getting across the dam was slow business. My thin long pants could defeat the nettles but not the thistles. I had plenty to look at as I made my slow way, mostly skippers, and then there was such a strange bird poop that I had to check to make sure it wasn't a fantastic little slug with a huge gooey white body, and finally two bugs luxuriating in the spikes of a thistle flower

There was nothing much happening at the Lost Swamp Pond, mid morning on a warming day, save for the heron's squawking exit and a kingfisher. The ducks, save for two almost grown wood ducks who had to splutter and scatter, were already at the point between the two parts of the ponds and just paddled out of my sight. No muskrats nor signs of muskrats. It seems they move out as soon as the young ones can. Other than trails in the grass up the slope, there were no signs of beavers. And the grass near the otter trail was a bit matted. A bit up the slope there was otter scat, not much, at least a few days old. I didn't linger because it was hot in the sun and I didn't think the otters were there. I went over to the Second Swamp Pond -- no muskrats nor ducks today. All the while I was going to the Lost Swamp, I recollected that the otters usually migrate from the East Trail Pond to Audubon Pond. So I headed that way, via the south shore of the Second Swamp Pond and Otter Hole Pond. As I approached the Second Pond dam, heading back through the tall grasses aiming to avoid even looking at it, a beaver splashed its tail. So I sat on the rock overlooking the pond and dam to see what was going on. In a few minutes a beaver came into the pond from the dam down where there is a trail into a small pool below the dam. The beaver swam along the dam and turned to check two points including the crossover down to the channel to Otter Hole pond,

then went back to the area of the dam it came from. It struck me that the beaver might not have been splashing at me, and that it was patrolling for otters much as a Big Pond beaver did two years ago. This was an encouraging theory and kept me attentive for 20 minutes, then the beaver came out again, swam straight toward me, veered up pond, going quickly, and when the wind at my back fanned my odor that way, the beaver splashed me repeatedly. So much for theories, but it is interesting that a beaver was out mid-morning. I also noticed these berries by the rock

which I don't think are very common. As as headed for the South Bay trail I did veer over to look at Otter Hole Pond and came right down upon a muskrat who dropped the grass it was carrying and disappeared. Of course I checked the otter latrine by my South Bay docking rock and saw no scat. A handsome old man of the woods mushroom was coming up.

Up at Audubon Pond, things looked different and I soon saw that the hole in the drain had been patched with mud. The path around the pond had just been mowed but the patch on the drain looked like typical beaver work.

As I walked along the causeway I tried to get a photo of a monarch butterfly,

then went down on the flat area where otters had scatted quite a bit last year. There were no otter scats but a matted down area with grass pushed out from the pond and left to dry in typical beaver fashion.

So I continued around to the bench and sat down. The old lodge looked unused, but the little bank lodge right below the bench had a brown streak coming out of it. However the cut cattail at the entrance could have been left by muskrats.

Then I heard a noise from the direction of the lodge which sounded like gnawing. However, a bullfrog warming up can stutter in that way. Then I heard it again, and finally I saw a small red beaver get into the water next to the lodge, just as another beaver surfaced. They both then climbed back onto the lodge shaking the water off their red coats. In the photo you can see the tail of one.

A few minutes later one of the beavers came off the lodge and into the pond, dove and surfaced near me, dove again and swam under water into the bank lodge below me. Then I heard gnawing below me but no sound from the lodge. I recalled that the otters had a penthouse on that lodge and wondered if the other beaver had climbed in there. Then the beaver below me swam out and returned to the lodge, where it gnawed a bit and then ate some plants. Unfortunately the wind shifted more from the west and I couldn't hold back a small fart. That sent both beavers into the water and they splashed me simultaneously. In their fury one stayed close to the lodge while the other came close to me,

tail splashing and also looking intently at me.

These were young beavers, certainly not much more than a year old, and the question arises: are they on their own or is there an adult about? If the former this might be an unusual attempt to survive by two young, perhaps orphaned beavers. More things to check. I also saw a number of fish jump so it would be convenient if the otters moved to this pond too.