August 1 I took an old friend out to see the story of the Meander Pond beavers. We headed over the ridge on Antler Trail on a warm, sunny, but not humid afternoon. We checked the shaded patch of may apples for apples and saw none. But down at the sunny patch just before we got to the South Bay trail, we saw two fat apples dangling under the large leaves. One was rotting on the stem.
The other was fat tight green.
We went to the rocks over looking the east end of Thicket Pond first and I tried to explain how the beavers survived at the top of the watershed, where there was little flowing water to dam, by dredging deeper channels. Then I explained how the family moved to Shangri-la Pond in the late spring of 2007, a pond a family of beavers had abandoned five years before after a pipe was put through the dam to keep the beavers from flooding a park trail. Then we moved up the ridge south of that pond marveling at the bright green grasses
where two months ago there had been a sheet of ponded water.
As we stood high on the ridge above the lodge, I told the story of the bright afternoon when I saw a beaver nosing the bank below, the six o’clock sun so bright I didn’t try take a video, not realizing then that the beaver was picking out the site for the new lodge. Within a week the lodge was built, and that summer the beavers dredged channels to the west and north and built up the dam but were unable to keep water from draining out through the pipe. Then I explained how one of the adult beavers died at the end of the north canal when a tree fell on it, and how I tried to determine its sex and guessed that it was the mother. If so, then since the family did not break up, her mate then mated with one of his daughters, and that another beaver remained and the three of them managed to defeat the pipe by the spring of this year by stuffing it with mud. Then we went down to the remnants of the dam.
I tried to describe the perfection of the pond early this spring, then explained how the dam broke after a thunderstorm and how it took the beavers about a month to restore it to its former glory, if not better. Then using a stick from the ground I tried to show how the large rotting stump and tree that pierced the dam was washed completely through the north end of the dam after another storm, scouring out all the dam material, pushing it down stream and draining the pond behind. We walked up to through the green grasses to the remnants of the small dam that the beavers built to try to salvage the situation. There several small frogs jumped into the remains of the pond evaporating away behind that small dam.
To get back to the ridge we crossed below the dam on the trunk that did so much damage. Now that it was high and dry, it seemed quite insubstantial, a peril to walk on. It might snap in two.
We went back on the ridge trail that overlooks the western end of the East Trail Pond meadow. We noticed scraping in the dirt around the trail,
And thought the wavy trail in the dirt was probably made by a turtle coming up to lay eggs, though we didn‘t see any eggs dug up by raccoons.
We went along the north shore of Thicket Pond to the dam where I explained how a lone beaver had moved from the East Trail Pond south of the Shangri-la Pond to Meander Pond west of Thicket Pond and then into Thicket Pond. I told how I speculated that the lone beaver was a two year old that left its family behind in Shangri-la Pond and how I first thought the beavers looking for a refuge moved into the pond with their son and sibling. Then I explained how the beavers didn’t seem to get along, and how I saw a beaver swimming down into the main channel of Meander Pond. Then we walked down the slight slope to that pond, and I showed off the new lodge the refugee beavers built.
I quickly explained the happy ending, that I saw an adult with kit in the safety of a deep dredged channel of the pond where the dam, rather thick with mud, held back a wall of water no more than a foot or two deep
and how the true depth of the pond came from the years of dredging that began when the family first used this pond back in 2001. So much for the saga, then I had worked to do taking photos of the recent work of the beavers. There was a wide path up the rocky north slope that led to the maple against the rocks that they had cut.
I last saw it leaning against the rocks. The beavers managed to get that trunk down to the ground and cut another trunk of the maple which they were segmenting and cutting branches out of the crown.
That was the major work on the north side. I could see a wider path below the dam heading down the cattails and alders. The burrow beside the dam looked well used as there was a muddy fan from it out into the pond.
The muskrats who had been there are probably still there. We walked along the south shore, and saw cut alders in one of the channels.
I explained how the beavers survived a drought year when all the pond evaporated save for the channel they dredged between a burrow on the south shore and a lodge in the middle of the pond. Finally we got to farthest reach of one of the southern canals were several maples had been cut, neatly segmented
and one log taken down close to the water.
The beavers were shopping in the woods for more maples to cut.
I confessed that I seldom visited the works of these beavers without getting a sense of their genius. They had survived for seven years moving between two ponds essentially created by their dredging and then after two years of living in a pond where their dredging may have contributed to a catastrophe, they moved back to one of their old ponds bringing at least one kit with them. I haven’t been around the pond enough recently to know if there are more. Then we went to our land. I took down a large aspen branch to the Deep Pond dam, at a little after 6pm. One beaver was in the pond and it swam over after some hesitation, dunked its head down and nipped off a twig, then it hunched up and ate the twig and its leaves.
Then the other beaver came into the pond, I think from the grasses on the high slope on the opposite side of the pond. It was much more timid but it didn’t slap its tail as it had done before. I expected the beaver already there to hiss it away, but perhaps it got the point of my demonstrating displeasure when it tried to hog the aspen the last time I was here. It faced the other beaver but didn’t prevent it from getting up to the aspen. Then the beaver had to confront us. It adopted a pose I noticed the last time I was here, presenting itself to us broadside, with its head slightly up and its tail cocked.
Not sure if this was to awe us by displaying all of its attributes, though leaving us to imagine how big its teeth most be, or if this was an attitude which allowed it to dive into the water most quickly with an accompanying tail slap to scare us away. Then it swam away but came right back and this time dove under water and eventually came up with its own twig. I tried to get a photo of the beavers peacefully gnawing away relatively close to each other, but the whir of my camera opening prompted the more timid beaver to swim farther away.
Meanwhile the two kingfishers were flying wildly around the pond with the usual cackling, and flying rather close to us. They did perch how on trees at time, but kept flying low over the pond. My guess is that the adult is having a difficult time getting the fledgling to dive into the water and that all the fluttering just above the water arises because it can’t bring itself to dive. I’ve had that problem myself, both as a child and a father. I could also see the head and the top of the shell of a snapping turtle out in the pond. We’ll save checking on the Boundary Pond beavers for another evening. The whip-poor-wills, probably three, sang sweetly around us. Not much other bird sound. I may have just heard coyotes.
August 2 rain at night and then heavy rain in the morning, not exactly what we need. The sun came out in the afternoon when we were back on the island. Ottoleo took us and our kayaks over to the cove west of the south entrance to the Narrows. That allowed us to escape a brisk west wind, but the shallows were not that lively. We saw only the smallest of shiners. We paddled by mallards of all ages, lone adults who didn’t even seem to notice us, a large flock of almost adults that melted into the cattails as we rounded the rocks, and a mother with seven ducklings that couldn’t have been more than two weeks old. It was as if she realized that having a brood so late meant that she had to put up with the humans that dominate the river and bays in July and August. She made gentle clucks to guide her clutch as they totally concentrated on catching bugs on the water, of which there were many. This is a very good year for bugs everywhere. Where this calm bay met the crosswinds of the Narrows, the pines were filled with chattering birds that I couldn’t identify by song and scarcely see. I finally saw why. They were swallows resting in the pines before soaring up after the bugs concentrating where the wind shear off Murray Island created a pool of insects about sixty feet up. Back on our land I sent out guest Bob Hunter and Ottoleo down to check on the beavers in the Deep Pond. I thought there would still be plenty to eat on the big aspen branch that I took down yesterday. They said the beavers swam over and seemed unhappy when they saw that the humans were empty handed. After dinner I took an aspen sapling down for them. As usual one came over before the other, and began eating promptly. The other showed me broadsides for a few minutes, then dove under, cut a twig and took it down the dam a bit. When both were eating, I stepped up to leave and they both dove and swam away.
August 3 I took a walk around the Last Pool and Boundary Pond, first chronicling the disappearance of the poplar crown in the Last Pool. They have cut the end of the largest branch in the crown, even stripping some bark where it meets the trunk.
But they are concentrating on the end, even cutting a log out there.
At the end of my walk around, I took a photo looking at this work from down pond and it shows how high, a couple feet say, the beavers stretch up to do their gnawing.
The prickly ash behind the poplar, that they had cut and trimmed, has not been touched, and I didn’t see any new work as I walked down the east shore of the Last Pool and Boundary Pond. A beaver may have renewed the gnawing on the hemlock girdled but still standing.
Of course, it would be short work to cut that tree down. So it appeared that the poplar and the many greens around and in the pond are keeping the beavers fed. For the past month it has looked to me like the beavers have been climbing up on the lodge. Today I could definitely see a trail of muck up on the lodge.
These beavers have never packed the outside of their lodge with mud, since they don’t have good packing mud. They seem to work muck into the interstices of the many branches and logs that form the lodge. I admired the dam again where it seems like sticks are still being added or getting rearranged.
Then when I went up the ridge west of the pond, taking the beavers' well worn trail, I saw that they are once again going up the ridge to cut ironwoods. They cut down one that in the middle of the trail.
It fell over so the crown could best be reached by coming up the slope from the pond. The beavers had nipped off all the leafy branches.
So poplar, greens, ironwood….. I didn’t see evidence of browsing on the west shore, though I have seen a beaver browsing through the frog bit. As I came down the east shore of the pond, I scared off two wood ducks, perhaps the pair that courted here in the spring. But I don’t think the ducks are making the channels through the frog bit. Beavers are cutting angles through the shallows, shortcuts to their deep channels.
Up along the channel between Boundary Pond and the Last Pool dam, there were two places where the beavers created little bays into the east side of the channel, convenient places for munching while other beavers go up and down the channel.
When I get around to comparing this summer to last summer, the width of the channel in early August might be a good gauge of the beavers’ dredging skills and the amount of rain we’ve had.
I continue to be fascinated by what I call the mid-dam of the Last Pool, which I discovered last week was not a dam because the beavers built a tunnel under the root where they keep piling sticks. The beavers seem fascinated by it too, as stripped poplar sticks accumulate on the up side of the pile. I bet this is where the kits like to nibble.
I brought Bob Hunter out to see the beavers in Boundary Pond at 6:30. I expected that if we sat an hour we’d hear some humming from the lodge, see some kits, and the two adults that are out early, and get back to dinner before the big league mosquitoes came out for theirs. There were no kits in the Last Pool, at least we didn’t see them. We got down to the chair above the lodge without seeing any beavers, but a few minutes into our vigil, a kit swam down the channel and into the lodge. There was more gnawing in the lodge than humming, but enough humming to charm us. It struck me that the pattern of beaver life had radically changed in the pond. Only the kits came out, for their quick forays up and down and around. Have some of the adults dispersed? A bit early for that, I think.
August 4 brief shower early in the morning then a hot humid day, but with a good west wind. I cut and collected some ash logs from near where I sit above Boundary Pool. I sat there during a break and all was quiet. I saw a turtle on a log, not a Blanding’s, probably a painted turtle but I couldn’t be sure. I checked the ironwood that I noticed yesterday that the beavers had cut. It looked to me that they had come up the slope below the trunk and almost cut a log off.
Despite the heat, once back on the island I couldn’t resist taking a hike to check on the beaver ponds. I angled off Antler Trail toward the Big Pond, and as I moved down my trail clogged with berry bushes, a deer jumped out of its bed in even thicker vegetation. How do deer manage four legs in such lushness when I have enough trouble with two? I didn’t see any evidence of any animal, especially beaver or otter, using the area of flattened grass at the south end of the dam. I sat at my perch there, barely able to see over the leaning cattail fronds, pyramids of meadowsweet flowers, swamp milkweed red bursts -- I could see over the blue flag iris bulbs bobbing low over the water
A bobtailed pert little duck swam into view and I began leafing through my poorly conceived mental edition of a duck identification book, when I heard the whine of wood ducks and the rest of the family joined the little one. I also saw large mallards here and there. Nothing flew off from the bug infested well vegetated surface of the pond. Then I disappeared into the cattails that towered over the dam. I found an edge of mostly firm mud and some evidence that beavers or muskrats harvest food there, a scattering of cut cattail stalks behind the dam.
Of course I always keep looking up pond hoping to see a muskrat and what I saw as I stood in the middle of the dam, stopped me in my tracks. The beavers had built another lodge well up pond, roughly where there was a lodge 6 or 7 years ago.
So I didn’t have to worry about the beavers surviving the summer. As I continued along the dam, my bare left arm stroking through slicing cut grass, I saw that I’m not the only thing that tries to cross along the dam. I saw a pile of mink or muskrat poop in an impression a deer hoof made
And nearby a frog nestled into another depression.
I kept seeing trails into the vegetation, probably made by the beavers, though in most of them I couldn’t positively identify what they were going down to eat.
Towards the north end of the pond, I saw a short trail to willow bushes. I didn’t go up to check out their new lodge. I’ll need a cooler day later in the season when the grasses calm down to a manageable level. Coming down to the Lost Swamp Pond I heard and then saw two osprey that I scared off their dead limb perches. And there may have been a third. I thought I saw two stray off and then saw one perched boldly on top of a dead trunk, placidly looking at me.
I also saw a beaver out in the pond, and when it saw me it promptly swam back into the lodge in the middle of the pond.
A beaver was out the last time I was here in the afternoon, and once again I wondered if it was on patrol for an otter. I looked down at the mossy cove latrine and everything looked rearranged, areas where I knew moss had been bunched had been flattened and other areas had a new pattern of raking
But I couldn’t find any pile of scats. I could see a trail coming up out of the water, but anything could have kept that up. Indeed I saw duck fluff in the grass nearby. Up on the other side of the bank lodge I saw a wider trail in the grasses next to the pond, which looked like a nice place for a beaver to sit.
I walked around to the dam. The osprey turned to face me, and stayed on its perch. I saw more trails up and around but no trails to trees, no beaver bark work. The dam seemed the same, no mud work needed. And I got support for my suspicion that the beaver was watching out for otters. There had been at least two otter visits to their sometimes latrine on the flat rocks a little below the dam.
I saw scats bleached gray, mostly with crayfish parts. And up a little ways, I saw blacker scats.
So when will this otter and I meet? The Upper Second Swamp Pond continues to lose its water to evaporation. The Second Swamp Pond still has enough water to delight a couple dozen ducks, and a kingfisher flying in the opposite direction, with the wind. I put my camera away just as a wood duck family escaping the grasses along the shore churned water as they fled to the middle of the pond.
On my way down to the dam, I saw a nice collection of bullhead parts under a high dead limb that osprey have enjoyed over the years
This was the biggest collection of remains I’ve seen here, three different scatterings. Some parts fresh enough for other animals to eat.
Those lobster-like mushrooms are all over the woods.
August 5 I collected firewood today, for the winter, though we did have a cool night, in the 50s. I had a chance to sit by the Boundary Pool lodge in the late morning, and at 10:37 am heard a beaver hum. I checked the gnawing they are doing on the ironwood they cut on the ridge and there didn’t look to be any more work on that. Then I checked the Last Pool, and saw that the log that had been hanging on the largest poplar limb had been cut.
And I saw where a beaver parked it on the bank of a channel, a few yards down from the remains of the poplar.
I couldn’t resist taking another photo of the mid-dam, which looks like such a comfortable place to nibble what’s been cut off the poplar,
Though I should hasten to add that I also saw a stripped poplar log behind the main dam, and no doubt some logs wound up inside the lodge. After dinner I took some aspen saplings down to the Deep Pond. These saplings are sprouting out from small trees I cut last year because they were encroaching on the garden. The leaves of the saplings are larger than the leaves on the trees, even though the trees are many times larger. Plus the sapling leaves are spotted. I was curious to see if the beavers would relish them. However, though I did my part in the feeding ritual, no beaver appeared. As I gazed at the sunset down at White Swamp, a flock of geese, low, large and not in good order flew into the swamp.
August 6 I walked down to the Deep Pond in the morning, and all the saplings I left seemed to still be there, unmolested by beavers -- the little fish in the pond seem to nibble the leaves enough to make them move. I worked around the Teepee and First ponds, and while I sat beside the latter, I saw hummingbird working the jewel weed between the ponds. At first I thought there would two but the more I think about it, that one hummingbird just circled around in front of me with that near supersonic speed they seem to have. Later in the day I walked around the Deep Pond, going down to it via the Third Pond, which still holds a good bit of water. The only beaver sign I saw along the east bank of the pond was an old pile of mud with some sticks crossed on top of it, that did not look like recent work.
Nearby a lily was blooming. And around the lily and all along the water just off shore I could see the usual underwater vegetation.
Other beavers who have stayed in this pond before wore themselves out diving for plants to eat. But the two beavers hopefully still here now seem oblivious to the underwater vegetation. I’ve never seen them dive and bring some up to eat. I walked back along the inlet and saw how the Joe Pye weed continues to close off their old trail back to the fern patches.
I didn’t have the courage to part the 8 foot tall weeds. And looking up the inlet creek, it didn’t look like they had ventured up that way.
I took the easy way, much of it just drying out, to the lodge. I didn’t see the remains of any recent meals on the mud flat east of the lodge entrance, but there was some just cut honeysuckle on the west end of the lodge.
However, as I stood on the lodge, which elicited no reaction from inside, I noticed that I could see through the lattice work of sticks that made the lodge
I widened a hole and stuck my camera down which revealed a rather spacious cleared area, thought given all the holes in the roof, not even safe from the falling rain.
The west end of the lodge looked tighter, but even when I stood on that nothing reacted inside. So perhaps the beaver are gone, or they were just fast asleep in one of the burrows on the east bank of the pond.
Back on the island, I hurried out to check Meander Pond before dinner. I cut off the East Trail and walked along the shaded rocks that form the east end of the smallest rib of rocks that creates the headland out to the Narrows. As I came around to the south end of the Meander Pond channels, I saw two deer browsing the forest floor, and played peek-a-boo with one. One deer was around two maples back in the woods that beavers had cut since the last time I was here a few days ago, perhaps interested in the leaves and twigs. The deer ran off as I went back to check on that new work, two mid-sized sugar maples, nothing trimmed off them yet.
The beavers are also bellying up to one of the big maples they cut and that proved to be a leaner. I doubt if they’ll have the gumption to gnaw through it.
They cut some logs out of a smaller maple nearby, that did fall to ground, and the logs remain where they were cut or almost cut.
A squall of rain moved through. I waded through tall grasses and walked on a rotting tree trunk until I got up to the back dam of the pond. I saw where the beavers came off the south channel, made a path through the grass and trimmed and leveled a patch of grass.
There was no new mud or stick work on this back dam, but the pond level is low despite the rain, the evaporation is winning.
Walking along the south channel and the back dam, I recalled the past years when beavers were here, and how I could often get rather close to the beavers. Sometimes they would literally walk up to my feet, especially at this end of the pond. Even where there is a bit of wide pond in this end of Meander, it is still closed in, perhaps giving beavers a sense of security. I recalled the many evenings I sat on the easy slope up to Thicket Pond, and watched for beavers coming down the main channel and then over to the south channel. None doing that today, but I lingered only long enough to get a photo.
Then I walked up the north shore toward the main dam, where I’ve had success getting close to the beavers this summer. I looked down at the lodge but didn’t get close, no beaver activity around it, nor whines coming from it, but I thought there were more stripped logs there. I decided to stay high on the north ridge and followed an inviting ledge right up to the crown of the cut maple trunk that had rolled against the granite cliff when it fell. The beavers had climbed up the rocks to nip branches at the top of the trunk.
I found a nice place to sit, forcing a snake with orange stripes to move. Sun was going doing and the rocks cooling, anyway. The beavers have cut five of six maple trunks that had grown in a bunch, quite a sight to look down upon.
The trunks that had fallen down on the ground were being trimmed and segmented.
I moved along the ridge until I got my best view of the water of the vegetation encrusted pond.
I sat for a half hour. I was surprised to see a heron fly off, and a kingfisher was about, but no beaver appeared. I walked down below the dam, and was surprised to see that not only was the water in the pond not muddy, but the wallow below the dam was losing its rich brown tint. And there was no fan of reddish brown mud below the burrow on the south side of the dam.
Obviously beavers are still active here. Maybe most of the muddiness before was caused by muskrats who have moved on to another pond or marsh, as they often do. As I circled around the pond I checked the canal leading to the recent work on the maples south of the pond. That too was not muddy.
This is all the more surprising because these are the family of beavers I credit with being geniuses of dredging.
August 7 we spent the night on the island, and I got up at 5am and headed off in the kayak to check on the otters on Picton Island. As I paddled away from our dock a bat circled over my head, enjoying the bugs I scared up. The moon was up just past full, quite bright, with a companion planet. Another planet was bright behind me in the sky becoming pale with the rising sun. There was a north wind strong enough to prompt me to paddle between Grinnel and Murray Islands. Several common terns passed over head. Gulls were still huddled on the shoal rocks. Last time I was here at dawn a half dozen osprey flew and cried over Picton. Today there were two over Maple Island. So when I paddled around Quarry Point, there was enough light to see (I was kicking myself for forgetting binoculars) and there was a light wind in my face. Perfect conditions for easing up on otters out fishing. Best still, there were no human fishermen about. The one motorboat out on the river sped right by me. I was even able to get close to a heron perched on the rocky Picton shore. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any otters. I saw one wake heading to the shore west of the den the otters used two weeks ago, but it looked very much like a muskrat’s wake, narrow and steady. There is somewhat of a bay west of the den, and a large fish jumped a couple of times there. I paddled back next to the shore, with the wind, perfect for waking up otters denning in the shore. But I saw nothing but a red squirrel coming down for a drink. I heard a couple of loons in the distance. I didn’t see any scats or remains on the rock outside the otter den, but I did see a fish part pasted on a rock in the river, about a foot deep. I forgot to mention that paddling into the wind, I did smell fish. So? Can’t conclude much when you don’t see otters, except that you didn’t see them. They could very well have fished in the moonlight and greeted the dawn sound asleep. Or they could have moved to the scores of other perfect sites for dens along the rocky shore or up in the old quarry. I paddled back into the bays south of Quarry Point and saw no signs of otters or beavers. I heard some stray osprey screeches. I had the wind at my back paddling home and the dozen or so cormorants lazing in the river let me get unusually close. I felt lucky to see such sleek arching elegance so early in the morning. One flew by with a small fish in its beat with another cormorant close behind. Since cormorants don’t commonly carry their catch for all to see, I suspect this was a parent using the bite sized fish as a lure to teach a young bird some tricks.
Back at our land, Leslie had visited the Deep Pond dam in the morning and reported that the aspen saplings I left had been taken or stripped. So at 4:30 I took some more down. Not only were the saplings gone but it looked like the beavers had cut other saplings and laid them or and in front of the lodge. As I sat by the dam a hummingbird briefly visited the jewel weed. I saw a snapping turtle’s head well out in the pond. At 5 sharp a beaver swam out of the lodge, and then directly across the pond where it climbed up on the bank and nibbled some grass. Then it whooshed back into the pond, and swam directly down toward me. This was the less cautious beaver and after a feint toward the middle of the dam, it swam right to the aspen sapling without much pausing. It did tug the bunch of saplings away from my feet, but only took them a yard or so away and began nipping twigs and eating them whole, leaves too.
I can waste a lot of video tape doing this, especially watching the beaver paws like little hands manipulating the twigs.
The other beaver didn’t appear. After an early dinner I got out to the Boundary Pond at 7pm. I didn’t see any action in the Last Pool, but I did see a kit climbing around the stump and trunk of the big birch on the west side of the what I used to call Log Dam pool which is now part of Boundary Pond. I tried to get video of the kit, but the swarming mosquitoes, I fear, made it a bit herky jerky. I strained to see if the kit was actually gnawing any of the stripped sticks it kept sniffing over, but I think in the main, it was nibbling the vegetation growing up between the sticks. It didn’t see me.
When it went back to the main channel it nosed across it, sort of up it, as if wondering where to go, not at all alarmed. I sat in my chair on the ridge above the lodge and all was quiet down below. I think the light and variable wind wafted my scent up pond, because the kit soon steamed quickly down pond and dove smartly into the lodge. Its entrance was not greeted by hums, but soon enough I began to hear signs of life from inside the lodge. A kit came out and swam around the lodge. It didn’t seem to notice me or look for me so perhaps it was a second kit. A few weeks ago the kits always seemed to know I was around. Now they seem less curious about me perhaps because they are keener to learn how to be more blase like the older beavers. So it seemed like the kits were running about without adult supervision, then a beaver swam down pond under water for most of the way. It made the bubbling signs of dredging that I’ve seen one of the adults frequently do, and when it surfaced I saw that it was an adult. It did swim over to take a close look at me. Then went into the pond. So the pattern for the next hour was set. One kit at a time hurrying about the pond, and one adult at a time, looking up at me and then swimming up pond to do I know not what. And the whining and gnawing in the lodge picked up. There was one new wrinkle. A kit swam back and into the pond carrying a large leaf by the stem and was greeted by a whine or two. So one kit at least has begun to gather food. Meanwhile the cedar waxwings were flying above the open spaces over the pond getting insects. Unlike when they gather berries, the waxwings were silent. No zee zeeing. They perch on the trees, sometimes right in front of me, and often on low branches. I think their unnerving proximity prompted one kit to splash the water. Not exactly with it tail, but with its whole being. Of course, it then hurried back to the lodge. The waxwings, as far as I could see, had no interest in the beavers. Then the barred owl let out the first three notes of its song from a tree on the opposite side of the pond. Then it thought better of it, stopped. Must have seen me though I could not see it. Cold enough to put on a jacket, but not cold enough to give the swarming mosquitoes any pause.
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