July 9 to 22, 2003

July 9 I headed off to the ponds at 5pm with hopes of seeing some early beaver activity at the upper East Trail Pond where I think the beavers have babies. No otter scats on the South Bay trail, and today the birds were relatively quiet on the East Trail, despite the cooler and clearer weather. I detoured to check on the beaver activity at the Thicket Pond. Thanks to the shade provided by the thicket, there is still water in the pond.

The lodge is bigger 

and there has been much activity on the north shore of the pond. Hornbeam is their favorite food, and I saw a mid-size maple down,

and some red oak girdled. The channel from Meander Pond is muddy so I think the colony is using both ponds. Meanwhile above the upper East Trail Pond, more trees are down, especially cherry, which is what these beavers feasted on last summer, taking them from the south shore. They also are taking pine, and at one point on the slope there is a stripped pine, red oak and cut cherry all together.

They seem to be taking some of what they cut, but down in the pond I didn't see any logs. Could they be building another lodge? I sat above the pond for 45 minutes, reasoning that I might also see an otter family. They often swam out of this neck of the pond last summer.

There are some beautiful swamp milkweed out there, but too far away for a photo. I did see a muskrat swimming with grass into the lodge where I think the beavers are. But I waited in vain for beavers to come out. Once again birds had to entertain me and red wing blackbirds did the most, some still feeding young. After checking the rock above the lodge which was too dry to reveal too much, I walked around the pond. All quiet and no fresh otter scat, though I did see a fresh trail in the grass next to the trail over the ridge, but who is to say a fisher or raccoon wasn't using the trail. As I approached the Second Swamp Pond from below the dam, I decided to cross the big dam which has been too soggy for me for about a month. It was clear as I crossed so the beavers have not been down there much, though there is a narrow way for them through the very tall grasses.

The main channel down to Otter Hole Pond didn't look well used either.

And a way for me, though the cattails and grasses tickled the top of my head. As I crossed, I saw a muskrat swimming with grass back to the lodge. Once I made it across, I headed up to the Lost Swamp Pond. As I came up to the pond I noticed wee wisps of foam on the grass everywhere. I guess a very small insect up to some tricks. Then in the pond, I saw a goose posed on top of a log, and then another. Then I saw some heavy ripples up along the shore, and an osprey began crying and then flew up off a topped trunk, flew over me and away. Must be fish in the pond. Thinking of an otter, I moved forward only to see more geese these with goslings. Then I did see a furry thing dive, which I could soon see was bigger than a muskrat because one swam out and looked half the size of what I saw. I kept moving up the pond and looking and something furry rustled the grass in front of me. At first I thought it was a porcupine, then I saw that it was a beaver, which went placidly into the pond, swam out about 20 yards and began munching things it fished up from the shallow bottom of the pond.

When I moved too close, it splashed me and disappeared. I never saw the other animal, but suppose it was another beaver. When I scanned the lodge, I saw a large snapping turtle on top. Two deer were grazing on the point of the pond across from me.

I decided to go via Otter Hole Pond on my way home to dinner. And was surprised to see a beaver in one of the lush channels coming into the south shore, which I had just walked by a few minutes ago. This beaver paused in the grasses, laying low, but as I walked on, it swam out into the middle of the pond and dove for food out there. All quiet in Otter Hole pond, but there were some muskrat trails in the grass. Three deer were soon looking at me from the ridge -- none of them fawns. And ever scanning the green ponds, much more grass than water, I saw this sport on a birch trunk.

More deer on the TI Park ridge.
July 13 after two days with almost two inches of rain, plus strong winds, I headed off on a cool cloudy morning that quickly warmed up and turned sunny. No otter scats on the South Bay trail. I went up to check the Porcupine Hotel rocks, thinking that the gale on the river might have driven the otters into rocks. But when I got up on them and looked down, I remembered that there's precious little water in there. So no signs of otters there, or on the point across the dam. I got on the old boardwalk and then sat in the shade gazing on Otter Hole Pond. To my surprise, I saw a kingfisher right in front of me and it dove into the water straight away, without making a chatter after the dive. I think it was a fledgling, as it dove again without any chattering, and this time it looked like it got something. Then I noticed another kingfisher that flew near the first, eliciting no chatter, and both frequently and quietly diving. This encourages me to think that there are enough fish in the pond for otters. I went up and over the ridge and as I came down half way to the East Trail pond I saw a fresh otter scat under a small log. The otter only had six inches to get its tail under there

I looked for more scat, saw none, but still sat under the big pine, low behind the dam to wait for an otter to appear, or better yet, an otter family. All was quiet save for an adult and at least one young song sparrow flying low over the pond behind the dam, with some nice singing from the adult. Then a chattering kingfisher appeared and dove for fish. After a half hour I moved on around the pond looking for any muss of grass or array of scats that would indicate that an otter family had been about. No luck. I did see one curiosity: an ash cut by the beavers last year still hanging in the air and with about three fourths of its bark eaten away for the whole length of the tree, by some insects?

I walked along the south shore of the Thicket Pond and saw one small maple taken and more on the way

as I went around the pond I saw muddy water, used trails and more sticks on the lodge

I must come out here in the evening. The larger maple they had cut toward the north shore of the pond had been trimmed and segmented and more smaller maples in that grove cut down.

I continued down to Meander Pond where I saw no beaver activity except along the eastern end which could have been work done by beavers now staying in Thicket Pond. The water behind the main dam and behind the larger of the smaller dams was clear. The smaller pool was muddy, perhaps a deer had walked through. I continued heading east, hoping for a good photo of butterflies in the very high thistles, but no luck. Just before the little bridge below the Short-cut trail dam I noticed that the huge half cut ash there was splitting right down the middle. In splitting ash logs I call that split the key. This was the biggest key I've ever seen.

For old times sake I sat on the covered bench at Audubon Pond. No sign that anything had been on that shore, though muskrats must still be around. Only one open clam shell on the shore there. I walked around and moved the geese off the shore and into the pond. Along the huge causeway dam, I enjoyed the birdfoot trefoil coming up where the grass had been cut. Then I saw a mouse not enjoying it as much as me

I also saw a perfect sphere of seeds that somehow survived yesterday's gale

and then I saw an inch long beetle hugging the only white flower to seen

then it flew off. So a man made hill can be entertaining in mid-July. I checked the otter latrine above my docking rock along South Bay and was surprised to see a liberal smear of scat next to and almost on a large tree

This is a more likely spot for raccoon scat, but the smelly spread was unmistakably otter.

Not so many herons along South Bay today. Though it was lunch time, I decided to go up to the Lost Swamp Pond to see if an otter made a general tour of the area. There's no telling if the same otter scatted above South Bay and above the East Trail Pond, but I always think if I see a third latrine that tips the scale of evidence in favor of a touring otter. Above Beaver Point Pond dam I chatted with a grazing deer, observing to her that she eschewed the thick lush green grass for the vines entangling the rock outcrops.

At the Lost Swamp Pond, I moved at least two groups of geese through the pond. They probably came for refuge during the wind storm. There were no signs of otter on the north shore slope. I sat for a short while enjoying what had become a clear comfortable day. I decided to skip the Big Pond and take an old route through the woods, my old beeline from the first swamp ridge to the Lost Swamp Pond. I remembered the way, though I haven't taken it in years, and crossed the Middle Pond dam, where all is shallow and lush. On the TI Park trail I heard the red eyed vireo as usual, but it was lower, and to my surprise, right in front of my face singing sweetly.

I think of these as the last to get babies out, though I did see a few tailless robin fledglings today. The vireo flew off, staying low, chasing young, I think, singing all the while. As usual I put my cameras away as I came down to TI Park, and then saw a baby raccoon moving through the grass, then another, and another, and another, and an adult, and more babies, and got a video of them escaping from me up into a tall oak tree

July 15 out in the swamp in mid-day in mid-July which only makes sense for one thing: looking for otter pups. I went to the East Trail Pond first and sat for awhile. Saw some flickers and a painted turtle. The red wing blackbirds are winding down. No new scats down at the latrines, though it looked like something broke a new path into and over the dam. Then I went and sat on the ridge overlooking Otter Hole Pond and no otters revealed themselves. I think this is the most likely pond after the East Trail Pond to raise a family in: shallow, has had enough fish to keep attracting heron, and no beavers. Disappointed again I decided to adjust my sights and pondered the little white daubs on all the grass blades.

I expected a foam but found it hard and much as I picked it apart, nothing inside. I assume they are insect eggs of some sort. Then as I slid down the ridge, I photographed a flower I hadn't noted yet, St. Johnswort.

which a bumble bee was enjoying. Then I saw a handsome caterpillar under a leaf, perhaps a variety of yellow bear, from which, the books say, a Virginian tiger moth springs.

I was going down the ridge because I reasoned I could get to the other side of the pond and avoid the thistles and nettles on the dam by walking through the now dry grass below the dam.

Alas, this was a cutting grass which steadily cut higher and higher up my legs. There were a few areas where a sleeping deer had pressed down the grass. I went to the stream hoping it was dry, but there was a half foot of water in it. I went up to the dam where a small amount of water flowed through the leak. Below the dam the stream bottom had snails on it, some pulsing together so much that I don't think it was caused by the force of the small stream. I fished two out for a photograph.

And then a painted turtle waddled out from under the dam, took a look at me

and soon swam down stream and disappeared. I started to continue across the dam, then a nettle got me and I went back to be cut by the grass. It was a relief to get to some burr-reeds which are easy to dodge.

No signs of otters anywhere and I even went along the old rock dens. Where the trillium had been nestled in the rocks so the deer couldn't get it is now all nightshade vines.

I went through the woods up to the south shore of the larger section of the Lost Swamp Pond. Here I flushed two families of mallards and two wood duck ducklings off on their own. The geese were over on the lodge by the dam. Where I rested on the rocks there were some vigorous butter and eggs,

good crop of these all over. No sign of otter here either, nor any sign of beaver activity but, of course, I've seen beavers in this pond. No new scats on the north shore. However, bespeaking for fish in the pond were a heron, kingfisher and osprey. Two kingfisher, chattering today, and chasing more than fishing. On the way around the pond I found snake bones nestled in some small rocks, picked clean quite handsomely.

I went back down to Otter Hole Pond and then up and over the ridge. Going back on the South Bay trail I saw this handsome rat snake.

In the afternoon I took a tour of South Bay in the kayak. Not too many geese around -- I think the cold spring was hard on nesting, but ducks and ducklings, who nested a little later, are about -- a couple groups out in the river. I still saw some carp in South Bay; only a few turtles; and I'd say fewer herons. They too have moved out into the river more. The grasses were not as bad as I feared they would be in the cove areas. A lot more algae in places, a few patches thick like a carpet, but mostly hovering like green clouds or ghost-like on stalks of plants. But an otter could still fish around easily enough, still I saw no signs that any had been through. Not as many terns fishing there.
July 16 I went out after dinner to Thicket Pond in hopes of seeing the beavers. We had a brisk SW wind so I went around to the north shore of the pond and tried to get a vantage affording a view of a few channels near the dam. I waited for an hour, with quite a few mosquitoes, and may have briefly seen one beaver head -- or it might have been a bullfrog. Then I walked in front of the dam and didn't even see any muddy water. But I looked up the south shore of the pond and saw a maple just cut. I walked up there and thought I caught a sound of a beaver eating.

I had been fooled before, thinking a bullfrog warming up for croaking was a beaver gnawing, but soon I definitely heard the gnawing coming from the shaded darkness of the pond. I waited hoping the beaver might come out into the dying light and grab another maple branch, but I heard water move, the gnawing stopped. It didn't even splash me, impregnable in its thicket fort, all impenetrable moat. On the way home in the near dark I startled the raccoon family and one kit finding it too slow getting up behind its sibling, jumped down on the ground and scurried away.
July 20 returning mid-afternoon from a long weekend in Pennsylvania, I headed off to the pond just as a light rain began to fall. I dreamed of otters while I was away and so set out to get some idea of where they might be. But first along the TI Park road I heard rustling in the woods, looked in and saw a small buck, though with a nicely developing rack of antlers. He looked at me too, but kept moving away as I tried to get closer for a photo. No new otter scat along the South Bay trail, and only one curiously singing oriole, I think, whistling its song and then slurring with some sparrow-like notes. Up on the East Trail a large dead trunk festooned with developing chicken of the woods mushrooms glowed in the moist woods

The East Trail pond was dancing with rain drops. I didn't tarry but did slide down a slope to check some matted grass where the otters often sat in other years. No sign that otters did it, and down closer to the shore, I saw the remains of a not quite finished beaver meal

I fancied that a yearling beaver, the smaller of the two that often splashed me here, left it, while its parents were off in the lodge in the upper pond caring for young -- pure fancy, I should say but such thoughts keep my head up in the rain. As does seeing an osprey with white tail fanned out enough to fancy that it's an eagle. A swallow was chasing it, and when it got over Otter Hole Pond I heard the osprey call. I continued along the shore of the East Trail Pond and there was not an otter sign to be seen. A pile of stringy scats on the log struck me as being raccoon, and if not that, than a fisher's.

And on the trail up the ridge a little hole had been dug, but no scat annointed it. I went up and over along the trail and was rewarded by the first cardinal flower

plus the water plantain has finally achieved its proper alignment

such disappointing little flowers for such a grand beginning. With the light rain continuing, I decided to go down to Otter Hole Pond. There I saw four wood ducks with the ducklings almost as big as the mother, and with enough weight to elude me with dignity -- no more of that frightened flapping through the water. I crossed Beaver Point meadow on the old narrow board walk, 6 x 6 beam really. Used a downed log to cross the little channel around the point of rocks. No sign that otters have been there, nor on the dam. Rather than cross the main dam I went through the grass of the dry pool below the wing dam. Usually there is a deer in here, some years a fawn. But today, nothing.
July 22 rainy yesterday, then a little rain last night, leaving the grasses and trails wet in the morning. Clouds gave way to sun but the humidity lingered. Of course, I set my sights on baby otters; didn't see them but saw or heard everything else. The first treat was a wood thrush singing again, and the vireo still hasn't quit. No otter signs on the South Bay trail, but up the East Trail Pond there were emerging mushrooms to notice

a little beyond this one were some Indian pipes. As I came over the rock above the East Trail Pond, a kingfisher made some waves on the far side of the pond, and stayed around. A heron croaked loudly as it flew off, like it really didn't want to leave. So why not an otter? I also heard the banjo green frogs. The near side of the pond was all duckweed, without nary a break in it to raise my hopes that an otter had been through. I went down to the latrines by the dam and saw that there was no new scat, but I still sat and watched the pond, listening to a mourning dove up on a ridge. The song sparrows that grew up there are bolder; no longer just flitting through the tall grasses. They are head and tail up on the world, or at least on some low branches. One came close to me

and then when they left one lit on a dead branch in front of me and sang which picked me up. In my mind I was comparing them to chickadees; then I heard the peewee call of the chickadee high in a pine, soon after three or four capered around me just as the song sparrows had, only getting closer as they always do. I checked the ridge for otter scats, found none, and went up the old trail where I disturbed a large yellow brown bug with clear wings, a noisy and inefficient flyer. I was on my way to check on the beaver work on the ridge between the East Trail and Shangri-la Pond and could see it from across the pond, though the oak they were girdling was only half way up the ridge. All that greenery below but still they need the timber above. Before I got to the beaver work I was diverted by a strange looking bird with many white feathers working through the trees with a few flickers. It flew off with the flickers, and I assumed it was a flicker gone white -- if that's possible! If not, perhaps it was a cuckoo. The beaver work on the top of the ridge is striking. No longer are they taking cherry and pine. They are girdling and taking down white oaks.
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More tasty to them was a red oak, which they stripped and debarked.

But even that was strange, since this oak was nothing but a stubby trunk. They also took cherry and some birch, and for the first time ever, I saw beaver gnawing on the trunk that had fungus covering part of it.

I get the impression that here is a beaver or beavers gone crazy with taking down trees. I could see stripped sticks down at the lodge, but not the lumber yard one might expect from all the trees taken. I went down to the bridge to see if the beavers had been there, no. And on the way bumped into another black rat snake. This one was more animated than the usual snake since I almost stepped on it.

I back tracked a bit and then went to check on the work at Thicket Pond.

I saw that the maple I stood behind the other night was completely stripped, and another leafy maple down behind it. Then I heard some gnawing from the pond, took a seat and waited. The beaver must have sensed me because there was a loud tail splash from the thicket. But I waited and sure enough a beaver swam into the little canal leading to the work, got some tidbits, and swam away. I moved closer

and that set the beaver off with several splashes going toward the dam, yet it again swam back to get a peak at me and splash closer to me (though there could have been two beavers.) I finally saw what most of the thickets were -- button bushes, which I don't think beavers fancy for food. While the beaver was splashing me, a deer started snorting behind me, but when I went that way I didn't see any deer. Down at South Bay again, I enjoyed a common yellow throat working through the bushes, never pausing long enough for a photo. Then going up the south shore of upper Otter Hole Pond meadow, I saw a buck swimming through the grasses.

The other treat as I made my slow way was flushing a red tail hawk that circled and screeched above me. I couldn't help but think it was the hawk I saw in such an awkward position several days ago, perhaps getting a measure of revenge on me. I didn't expect any beaver to be out in the sundrenched Second Swamp Pond, but I had to stop and notice how their set up on the south shore resembles the Thicket Pond situation: a canal from the pond, through high grasses, and a path to a birch that fell just the right way toward the pond.

I checked the ridge between the Lost Swamp Pond and Second Swamp Pond for otter scat and found none, but couldn't help but imagine an otter family going down to use the shallow upper pond under the rocks. I walked down to the pond setting off frogs, which I noticed, and a family of wood ducks which I didn't notice until they were floating in the middle of the pond seemingly at a lost as to where to go since they had just forsaken the perfect hiding spot. I noticed that the cattails along the upper edge of the pond seemed roughed up -- by deer, I presume, though I always picture otters knocking plants over. As I came up to the Lost Swamp Pond, I saw a small muskrat hunched on a log nibbling away.

I got fairly close and with camcorder hoped I was getting a study of its fast moving jaws. It dove into the water and a minute later came up with fresh greens which it took to the same spot on the log. Then it noticed me, dove, and didn't quite disappear. I could see its little head peaking up out of the water looking at me. As I watched the muskrat, the noon fire siren went off and that set off five minutes of yipping and yodeling from coyotes above the Big Pond, quite a treat for me, and a good indication why I found two dead fawns in this area. A kingbird was about and I got the best photo as it perched on a mullein.

I flushed the usual two herons when I came in, saw more flickers, robins, red wing blackbirds, blue jays, medium sized hawk being chased by much smaller birds, and an oriole. As I lounged on a log, I saw a painted turtle climb up on its marooned log and it had a curious way of twitching one back leg like it was swimming, which it kept up for several minutes. I decided to go home via the Big Pond -- the sun had dried all the wet grass. Of course the cattail-and-vervain-thick 50 yard long dam is quite a challenge. The amazing thing is that for the length of it there are no thistles nor nettles, although other dams have both. Starting across I set off a rush of wood ducks churning through the pond, though all settled by the time I got the camcorder running. Then a fawn leapt out of the grasses below the dam. Something had cut a path here and there on the dam, a raccoon, I think. I didn't seen any otter, nor beaver, signs, but I did get an indication that otters would come, a small knot of baby bullheads

A final treat on this long and eventful hike was seeing two hawks maneuvering high in the air above me. One was smaller than the other but I don't think they were fighting. They'd come together and circle apart, the smaller generally approaching and moving off, with a bit of screeching.