July 10 after morning chores I checked the Deep Pond dam. It appeared that the beaver nibbled all the ironwood I left. There were some neatly stripped sticks on the pond bottom.
I think it even ate some of the leaves of the vine that Ottoleo left. I cut a small soft ash tree near our potato patch and I brought half of that down for the beaver's delectation, after I cut off some branches that were a good size for bracing up the tomato plants. I went back down to the pond at 4pm. The beaver is sometimes out then, but it was a no show today. I did see a heron on the far shore.
Of course, it flew off as I pushed aside the leaves.
It was too hot to sit in my chair so I went up to my sitting rock above the knoll which is too well shaded by honeysuckles. I bent down some to get a better view, but I only saw a few shiners jump, frogs splash and birds dart across the pond. No sign of the muskrats, which is strange. So I inspected the vegetation. Just down on the west side of the knoll, above the area of ferns the beavers have cut, the grape vines are climbing over the Joe Pye weed.
This is a banner year for Joe Pye, a plant whose tower of leaves is more striking than its flower.
I looked at the vegetation at the dam trying to figure out what the beaver eats there. I did see that a good bit of vegetation had been cleared, probably both by nipping and sitting.
And I got my first photo of this season's vervain.
After dinner I went out to sit above Boundary Pond lodge. On my way I saw a beaver in the grasses on the west shore of the upper end of the pond. I saw it ease into the water but I'm not sure if it swam back down to the
lodge. If it did, it swam underwater most of the way, which it could easily do. I sat in my chair and most remarkable was the lack of noise coming out of the usually humming lodge. I did hear gnawing from the well shaded east shore. Soon enough a beaver swam around the lodge, taking a long look at me.
Then when it went into the lodge, I finally heard some humming. I also heard the barred owl call just up the valley from the east ridge. And then a kit swam out of the lodge, quite alone, quite sprightly and seeming not to know exactly what to do.
My impression is that the beavers have decided to ignore my presence. Last year the kits were kept in the lodge until dark. Perhaps that was out of respect for the bobcat so active that summer, but I doubt it. So tonight everything seemed easy going: gnawing on the far shore, an adult
swimming up pond, another swimming over to the dam.
Then another kit materialized swimming down from the upper end of the pond. My guess is that there are three kits, though I have only seen two so far. I also get the impression that the yearling was given the duty to stay near the lodge and the kits there. Mother beavers are eager to get away after the kits are weaned. There is no auxilliary pond, that I know of, for her to escape to, save down at Wildcat Pond. Perhaps she is the beaver always gnawing away deep in the shade of the east shore. Of course this blase upbringing of the kits means I don't see much but byplay. However I saw a kit swim over toward the dam, lost sight of it, and then there was a wild splash that kits are wont to make when they are startled. I think the kit fled back into the lodge and the yearling, I think, carried a log up on top the dam. Just before it got too dark to see a kit came out of the lodge right in front of me and seemed intent on eating some blades of grass or other vegetation. Then it dunked down in the water evidently looking
for barkier fare. The yearling came around to that side of the lodge and nudged right up to the kit -- no wild dive this time. They both dove into the lodge, accompanied by and perhaps joining in with a good bit of humming. Everytime a beaver went into the lodge there was humming. The frogs started their chorus late, and
save for a very melodious warbler, the song birds were quiet. Not until I got down to the Deep Pond after 9 pm did I hear the thrushes' beautiful songs. I also heard two, perhaps, three whip-poor-wills. The beaver did not show, and still no muskrats.
Meanwhile this was the worst night for mosquitoes, no doubt responding to the heat and humidity.size="4">
July 12 yesterday I saw that the beaver stripped a few feet of bark off the ash I left it.
Today, when I went down to the Deep Pond dam, the ash log was gone, and the beaver was out, quite close to the dam, and as I approached, it didn't retreat. So I talked to it, thanking it for taking the ash and asking if it wanted more. The beaver kept near me, seemingly agreeable, so I walked back up the hill and got a small ash tree branch as well as two fresh aspen branches. When I got back to the dam, the beaver was at the dam. It promptly dove and swam about 15 yards out into the pond. When it surfaced, I tossed the three branches down in the water. The
beaver slowly swam over. I retreated a couple steps, and then it plucked up one of the aspen branches, took it to shallower water, closer to me, nipped off a twig, hunched up and ate it, right in front of me. I consciously came without my cameras. I wanted to negotiate with the beaver without paraphanalia. But now that it had approached and seemingly accepted me, I decided I best begin to document it. As I walked up the hill to get my camera bag, and more branches, I thought so far ahead that I decided to bring my gloves, in case I had a chance to offer to groom it. At first I would try with some protection from being bitten. But when I got back down to the dam, the beaver wasn't there. I saw something dive farther down the dam, that looked so small that I thought it was a muskrat. Well, I was anxious to see a muskrat here again. So I went to the chair along the west shore of the pond, sat and
waited for it to surface. Didn't. Then I moved the chair to the dam, to get closer to the beaver where it was accustomed to being fed, and it happened to be in the shade. So I sat there and waited for a muskrat to surface or the beaver to resume its
dining. Two kingfishers flew into the pond, flying close together, one chattering. I suspected some instruction was going on there. Then I waited for about a half hour with nothing but the wind moving the water, which is not uninteresting. I am still
puzzled by what looked like arrows of wind moving perpendicular to the direction of the wind. It could well be fish swimming but it seems too tied to gusts of wind to be that. Perhaps it is a vortex that doesn't quite have the energy to spin. Finally I saw something surface and I thought it was a muskrat but by the time I got my camcorder out, I saw that it was a turtle. That when it surfaced I thought it was a muskrat suggests that it was big enough to be a snapping turtle. And I could see that the nose up in the water was a foot of so from the top of shell above the
water. It didn't come any closer and submerged with less fanfare than it emerged. Unfortunately I turned off my camcorder. All of a sudden a brilliant ruby throated hummingbird hovered over the red blossoms of the swamp milkweed right in front of me. I got the camcorder up and it flew across the pond. Then, the beaver surfaced, nose up in front of the lodge. Soon I saw why. A deer was standing next to its lodge, and then the doe's fawn appeared.
Just as the beaver often swam out of the lodge when I walked near, so it reacted to the deer. It seemed much more alarmed by the deer, keeping its nose high and swimming back and forth in front of it. The doe paid attention to the beaver, though the fawn didn't. Then the doe relaxed, the fawn nosed up to suckle, but the doe moved forward. I eased my hand down to get my camera, and that was enough movement to direct the doe's attention to me, away from the still swimming beaver. The doe got the attention of the fawn and led it into the high grasses and I
saw them jump across the inlet creek and disappear into the bush. The beaver swam a bit farther out in the pond, dove, surfaced, and slowly swam back to the lodge. It kept head up in the water just outside the lodge for another minute and then dove into the lodge. Meanwhile, Leslie saw an indigo bunting. After dinner I headed off to see the Boundary Pool beavers. It was a cool windy night which boded well for less mosquitoes, or at least, I'd have more clothes on. Walking along the ridge west of the pond, I saw that the beavers cut down an elm and it crossed the channel.
I didn't sense any beaver in the Last Pool or upper pond, but when I sat down overlooking the lodge saw ripples over along the shaded east shore. And then I suddenly saw two adult beavers each swimmimg around opposite sides of the lodge. One went up stream and the other dove into the lodge, and the lodge which had been quiet suddenly resonated with humming. Of course I don't get a perfect view of what is going on but I think I get the gist of some of what is going on. Once again a beaver came out of the lodge and swam underwater well up the channel. I always think that might be a kit, but I did see an adult lurking in the channel later. The beaver that likes to dive and dredge up muck and sticks was quite active
and went to the dam a dozen times, but only twice really putting something up on the dam, or was it actually nosing up to eat something on the dam? A few times it dove right below me, churning up bubbles and mud.
Then I saw a kit in the pond and it was the only beaver that looked up at me intently. I have noticed this before. It stared and dove back into the lodge. Finally I saw what I really expect to see, an adult ferrying in a branch,
diving into the lodge and all the kits, I say three, humming away while the adult gnawed the bark. In about 10 minutes an adult came back out, and so did that precocious kit. Once again looking at me, intently, and then diving into the lodge. The mosquitoes were bad, good thing I had a coat. Once again I heard the hermit
thrush, quite close because I could hear the distinct first note before the rising trill, And early on I heard one long beautiful almost ferocious warbler trill. The whip-poor-will started up along a neighboring ridge as I headed home.
July 13 I got a chance to hike on the island. I rode the bike over to the state park then hiked around to Meander Pond. I angled off from the East Trail so I could get to the south channels of Meander Pond. There was a slight path to the most south reaching channel, but no real signs of beavers using it.
However, closer to the lodge on the slight knoll that the pond meanders around, I saw where the beavers had come up. A good bit of grass had been cut
and some of the alders nearby had been cut.
Down at the dam, the beavers cut one trunk of a three pronged basswood, and had begun cutting another.
They learned to cut basswoods last summer in Shangri-la Pond, and I've noticed that beavers like the large tender leaves at this time of year. Unfortunately the trunk they cut is hanging up in other trees, but they were able to nip the ends of a couple branches.
It is easy to see that they have gone over the dam a good deal, probably down to an alder patch.
And they fashioned a wallow below the dam
which serves a trail down to cattails which they seem to be taking back up into the pond
though there are cattails in the pond too. I would like to observe them using this wallow. They've also cut a maple which has fallen conveniently with the top of the crown in the pond, which they're trimming.
Then back low on the ridge, they cut two small ironwoods, one still hanging.
I didn't climb up to the rocks where I had watched them before, didn't look like any fresh work up there. Not only have they cut all the ironwoods on the north slope
but they've trimmed a good deal of the vegetation.
That was the extent of their work that I could see. The lodge in the middle channel was away from all that lumbering.
All was quiet inside at 10:30am. I didn't see any beaver signs up at Thicket Pond. Then I had time to see how the grass was growing in now empty Shangri-la Pond. The west end doesn't look remarkable, during any summer it can get to look that fern and shrub infested.
But the north end has a mysterious look with a channel sneaking under the high green grass
and the grass behind the failed dam has a virgin sheen.
Would that failed human engineering projects had such a quick and beautiful requiem leaving no rubble at all behind. I went down to the lodge to check on the Blanding's turtle shell. Still there, and the maggots completed their job on
the tail and something else dragged it out so the bones could bleach in the sun.
Meanwhile a brown butterfly sucked the tree drippings on our car.
July 14 about 3 pm I woke up from a nap and then headed off to Boundary Pond planning to walk around and then up the ridge and carry out one of the logs I cut the other day. When I got to the Last Pool, my first impression was that a beaver had not been up the trail above the northwest end of the pool, and then I saw how the muddiness of the pool tilted that way
and it soon became obvious that beavers had been on the northeast shore. Three of the four poplars had fresh gnawing, still none aimed at bringing down the big trees.
They also continue to cut the prickly ash around the poplars. For humans prickly ash bark can rather scintilate the teeth, which is why it is called the tooth ache tree, which is to say it relieves the ache. Up at the Teepee and
First Pond, years ago, beavers cleared two groves of prickly ash, I never saw them gnaw the bark. I should keep an eye out for the cut trunks because they do have stickers.
As I continued around the pond, I kept seeing cut saplings, but also many not even tasted. It looks like they may have worked around some of the netting Leslie put around a beech tree. I'll have to keep an eye on that. Another beech that I tried to protect by leaning rotten logs around the girdling looked unmolested. When a beaver swims up the Last Pool, it goes up a long muddy channel, and the beavers don't seem to go on shore from that.
Then it goes over the slight spillover of the mid-dam, and then a beaver can take a right and wallow in some shallows or go up along a shore with many saplings. Or it can continue up the pool to the end where there's a right, middle,
and left trail to trees. The beavers have stopped taking that first right, perhaps because now the pool has enough water to make going up pool easier.
As I pondered that, I saw a beaver at the dam of the pool. I snapped a stick and the beaver swam down toward the lodge. I followed slowly. Then I saw an elm freshly cut that the beavers seem to be humbling down by cutting logs out of the trunk.
The beavers cut two long logs and one about six inches long, all stripped but none taken away.
The pattern of beaver segmenting remains a mystery to me. Of course, in stripping a trunk, there is a tendency to cut the bark. So perhaps the beaver's incisors simply get carried away and gnaw deeply into the trunk. In this pond, the logs are seldom taken away. The longer sapling trunks usually wind up on the dam and lodge. I usually see branches taken into the lodge. Then when I got near all the beavers' recent work on the elm and hemlocks, I saw a beaver in the pond near the downed hemlock gnawing away. I hid behind a tree and got a good view of it, though I wasn't sure if it was eating stripped bark or leaves. When it gobbled it all, it swam down pond. The light wind was in my face so I don't think it sensed me. I moved down pond and took photos of work on the hemlocks and elm. The beaver are
stripping the mid-trunk of the larger hemlock that fell into the pond. That hemlock fell over the elm they cut. Today I could clearly see that all the leaves and branches of the elm crown had been taken or stripped.
Another hemlock nearby, almost as large the one cut down, had more gnawing into the girdling, but the gnawing seemed a bit haphazard, not necessarily aiming to cut the tree down.
And the small hemlock which they had been segmenting was now cut in half. Initially I thought the logs had been removed, but then I saw them sunk in the water.
I saw a rock nearby fashioned for a seat, so I took it, to see if there would be more beavers swimming in the pond. I heard a beaver leave the lodge, didn't see it, but soon saw the wake of a beaver swimming underwater up the channel. Then I saw something carrying a leafy branch to the dam. It crossed my mind that it could be a muskrat but I saw it swimming along the dam, branchless, and saw that it was a beaver. This beaver swam closer to me and was about to swim up the channel when it paused and swam over closer to me, with its nose working.
It made a sharp slap with its tail. Turned away but came back, slapped, turned away, came back. Then retreated toward the lodge. I waited a few minutes to see if the beaver that swam up pond would come hurrying back down. No. Once again the tail slap seemed intended to scare me, not alert other beavers. When I turned I saw a striking rock etched with lichens nestled in moss .
I walked below the dam and saw no evidence that any beavers had come over the dam. There seems to be more mud behind the dam and I think this is because a beaver has been putting mud and sticks behind the dam, and I saw that last night.
The lodge seems to have something added on top, yet I can't recall seeing a beaver on top of this lodge for some time.
I went up the ridge and I don't think beavers have been up there in a while. I sat in the chair. After the beaver who slapped its tail went back into the lodge, the humming stopped. I sat for 15 minutes and then heard a few quiet hums. I found a log to carry back to the woodpile. After dinner Ottoleo, Leslie and our guest Thomas went down to the Deep Pond. The beaver was out so they went back up the hill and got some aspen saplings. When I got down there the beaver was eating one of the aspens. I talked to it for a bit. Then I saw that there was something swimming in the middle of the pond, and as it swam back toward the dam saw that it was a muskrat. It seemed small but it was that time of getting dark when things in ponds seem small.
July15 I set out to haul in the logs I've been cutting above Boundary Pond and once again I took a circuitous route so I could check out what the beavers have been doing at that pond and the Last Pool. The pool was definitely muddier,
and I saw where they cut small trees above the pool. That's what they are coming to get, but I still study the girdling on the big poplars, easier to see their slow progress there. I didn't notice any definitely fresh work. I think they are stripping more off the large elm that fell in the pond, the one the hemlock fell over.
I sat in my chair briefly. In the woods the birds were still continuing their morning sing songs, even a hermit thrush. Then I got to work. After dinner I went to see the Boundary Pond beavers, and once again I disturbed a beaver that was in the channel almost up to the Last Pool dam. But I was moving more slowly and it retreated slowly, perhaps not sure I was there. Then I stumbled slighty and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a beaver whoosh down the shallow channel. But as I got up on the ridge, I could see that the hurrying stopped. I sat in my chair and was treated to a rather busy hour. It started slowly, a beaver swam below me, looking up at me, turned and dove into the lodge. That set off humming inside and I hoped they weren't talking about me. Another beaver came out promptly, also looked me over and went back into the lodge. I didn't like that, and braced myself for a lull, and then to my surprise, a kit swam down the main channel of the pond, and, without looking at me, dove into the lodge. Each beaver's entrance into the lodge set
off humming. So even though two adult beavers saw me, and they knew that a kit was up pond, they didn't sound an alarm. I began to feel better. I also vaguely heard some gnawing up pond, first thought it was a woodpecker. Then another adult beaver swam down the channel carrying a stick and without much ado took it into the lodge. A few minutes later, the same beaver came out seeming to carry a stick, which made sense. They can't let the inside of the lodge get clogged with sticks. Then that beaver dove and rooted around in the muck underwater, came up with an armful and
carried that toward the dam heading up to the east side where I couldn't see it. Then I heard a tree falling up pond, more the clatter of leaves than the thump of a trunk. As luck would have it, I had a view through the trees. I saw a beaver pulling a tree into the pond. I thought for a moment there were two beavers, but soon saw one cut off a large branch, pull it out to the channel and start carrying down to the lodge. The stately progress of a beaver carrying a leafy branch down a pond is always fun to watch. Early this year, a beaver stopped when it saw me, and didn't even take the branch into the lodge. This beaver paused,
but I wasn't sure it was looking at me. Then it dove into the lodge eliciting many hums. A few minutes later I heard more commotion down at the cut tree and saw a beaver cut off an even bigger branch. Last year I recall a kit hanging on as an adult beaver carried a branch down the pond. I forgot to mention that a kit had left the lodge, probably the same one that I saw dive in. But it wasn't hitching a ride. This branch was too big to carry in at one time.
The beaver quickly nipped it in half and took into the lodge. I was hoping kits would come out of the lodge to nibble leaves, but only the adult came back out to take more in. Then the roaming kit reappeared and dove right into what twigs remained of the haul. It didn't seem to have too much success getting a bite, and dove into the lodge for adult supervision. I was losing my count of beavers. But I think I could account for four adults and one kit and two sources of persistent humming inside, high hums that is, and a source of low humming. Then I
heard more gnawing from up pond. All the beavers were about tonight. Then suddenly I heard a thwack up pond, and then a beaver slapping its tail in the pond. This was rather far from me so I don't think I was the cause. I saw the alarmed beaver
swimming down the channel and it slapped its tail a couple more times. One early spring several years ago, I saw charging tail slapping like this and I interpreted it as coming from a rogue beaver warning off members of the resident family. But that
beaver was going away from the occupied lodge. This beaver was swimming to the lodge. It didn't swim into it, but veered over to the shady east side of the pond, almost bumping into another beaver, that I hadn't notice was out. That beaver dove in fright and the other disappeared. The diving beaver surfaced, and then slowly swam around the lodge, over toward me, and looked up at me, as if it was wondering if I was the cause of the other beaver's alarm. I didn't see that alarmed beaver but did see ripples heading up pond and then there was more splashing. My guess is that the tail slapping beaver was reacting to a predator on the east side of the pond, and that it came down pond to make sure the rest of the family was in the lodge, and then went back up pond to see if the predator had gone. I got up and along the ridge to see if I could see what was happening. I saw the tree they had just cut and dragged to the pond and I saw another elm that had just been cut that fell into the channel up to the Last Pool. I saw a beaver up in that channel, then it turned and went back down pond. Not because of me. I soon heard gnawing though I couldn't see the beaver. I headed out of the woods before it got too dark, a whip-poor-will accompanied me. Leslie had not taken an offering down to the Deep Pond beaver, like she did last night. When I got down there, I saw the beaver, and a muskrat out in the middle of the pond that swam into the dam. So muskrats are still there and prefer the darkness. I got an aspen branch and though it was dark I thought I could see a beaver out in the middle of the pond. I threw down the branch and sat in the chair that I moved just below and beside the dam. The beaver swerved and then made that splashing dive. I first took that to mean that the beaver didn't like me sitting in that chair. Then I saw another beaver swimming right toward me and the aspen. It was my buddy, and it came to the aspen, nipped off a small twig and started eating it. Then the other beaver forgot about trying to scare me and swam over, the beaver already eating moved off a bit. So I had two beavers eating in front of me. Everytime I moved the new beaver retreated but quickly came back. Both
beavers looked equally small but it was getting dark and hard to judge sizes. So I left the Deep Pond with much to ponder. Is this new beaver one that had been there before, or completely new to the Deep Pond? I'll have to get a good look at it.
July 16 We had a little rain in the night and it was threatening when we woke up. When the sun came out that humidity sizzled. I planned to haul out more logs but I worked up a sweat just walking to the logs. The woods provided no protection from the humidity. So I just took a walk around the Last Pool and Boundary Pond. I wanted to get a photo of the the tree I saw the beavers working on last night. Instead I solved the mystery of last night's tail slapping. One of the big poplars at the end of the Last Pool had
been cut down
so I think the beaver slapping its tail was warning other beavers that the poplar which it had gnawed was showing signs of falling. The explains why it slapped up pond, but not closer to the lodge. It wasn't worried about a predator
getting closer, but other beavers wandering unawares close to where the tree might fall.
Last night I did hear what sounded like things falling, but it never crossed my mind that it could be something as big as that poplar. If it fell while I was out that might explain why the beaver did go back up the pond. That said, even in the almost dark, I think I would have noticed the downed poplar. And there didn't seem to be any gnawing on or cutting of the branches in the crown which fell coveniently into the widest part of the Last Pool.
I couldn't resist "climbing" the supine tree, much to the surprise of some green frogs in the pond. Needless to say the rest of my walk around the pond was anticlimatic. I saw that the Last Pool dam was almost worn down
so that Boundary Pond and the Last Pool are almost united.
The elm on the west shore of the Boundary Pond channel, that I thought freshly cut last night, was actually one cut weeks ago and rather trimmed by the beavers, and I couldn't find the tree they cut on the east shore of Boundary Pond, evidently the beavers took it all down to the lodge. So I contented myself with another photo of the big poplar crown in the pond taken from the west shore, the spot from where I hoped to watch beavers that evening.
Back on the island I had a chance to take a hike to check on the Lost Swamp and Big Ponds. For most of the hike the west wind blowing off the river kept me comfortable. I went up and over the first ridge on Antler Trail and then angled up over the next ridge to Otter Hole meadow. I could hardly see the pool of water there, remnants of a once mighty pond. The Second Swamp Pond still has water,
enough for a train of wood ducks that I saw, but vegetation was crowding into the pond suggesting that beavers and muskrats have not been trimming the greens, nor otters working their way through it up to their latrines.
Certainly no beaver signs. I walked along the wooded ridge between the Second Swamp Pond and Lost Swamp Pond. I flushed a couple of herons out of the latter. Then I dipped down to look at the Upper Second Swamp Pond which was quite shallow and showed no signs of beavers.
However, the Lost Swamp Pond is as high as it has ever been, and the dam is still ministered with fresh mud.
The vegetation in the pond has almost been cleared. I'd like to credit muskrats for doing some of the that, and I'm sure they did, but the usual log where I count their poops to gauge their activity is almost completely under water.
The vegetation along the sundrenched north shore is rather thick, but I followed a trail through it doubtlessly made by deers, and that was intersected by trails coming up from the pond, probably made by beavers. I even saw a
cut mayapple plant floating in the water next to other trimmed vegetation.
There were several trails up onto the north slope, but none coming off the west end of the pond. From the south shore of the pond I got a better view of the lodge showing some fresh greens collected by the beavers, and I even saw the
ends of some freshly stripped logs.
I couldn't see where they might have gotten the logs. I sat up on the rock above the mossy cove latrine and saw that an otter had been below, the ground had been raked over and the grasses and mosses formed into mounds. Before I checked for scat, I thought I saw something not a duck swimming in the southeast reach of the pond, so I hurried over and only saw two small ducks swimming away. How I want to see an otter! I gazed out at the far lodge where I used to see otters, and I could fancy that the shadows made by vegetation sprouting out all over it were otters. They weren't there.
Then I saw a beaver come out of the lodge near by and swim in that circular heads up fashion like it was wary of something, and perhaps it wasn't me, perhaps an otter was around. I went back to the mossy cove latrine to see how fresh the otter scats were. The mounded vegetation and the scraping looked like it was just done,
and there was enough of that to lead me to expect several smears of scats, some fresh.
But I only found two rather old strings of scat.
I sat on the rock above the latrine for about 20 minutes and there was much to watch. A osprey high in one of the dead trees behind the dam did not hang around long. Two kingfishers bothered each other in a helter skelter manner and
they still managed to dive for fish. A kingbird worked off a dead birch in the water, and smaller flycatchers skimmed the water. I saw another train of wood ducks. A flicker was about and a downy woodpecker. No muskrats or turtles. Quite beautiful and cool with the wind and I could have sat for hours, but I don't have much time to spare since we mainly live in our house at our land. Crossing the Big Pond dam presented the same daunting challenge and I almost contented myself with taking a photo of some shrub willow twigs beavers had collected on the dam
and then heading down an old trail to South Bay. But wood ducks lured me on. They were all around the pond but the mother took pains to wait for a ducking too close to the dam and guide it up pond away from me.
Then with my next few steps along the dam, a beaver swam out from the vegetation behind it and didn't head to the lodge, but to the marsh behind the south end of the dam. I saw it lurking in a plat of green near the marsh, eyeing me. Then a circle of very small ducklings peckalated the water closer and closer to me.
I tried to discern an adult in the bunch and will have to study the video to identify them. Anyway to make a dicey dance over mud hanging on cattails interlaced with cutting grass short,
I made it without getting my feet wet or too muddy. There is another fresh honeysuckle on the dam, but only one.
I didn't see the beaver again. At the south end of the dam there was some cut and smoothed down grass which looked like the result of beaver sitting there, then I found some mounded grass, and there was an old otter scat next to it.
So an otter or two continues to visit these two large ponds. When I got up into the woods over looking the first swamp, I saw a strange Indian pipe like plant, about a foot tall
with two tiny pale green leaves on the narrow stock and then a network of strange berries looking like shrunken pumpkins.
Having never seen the like before I didn't want to pick it, Unfortunately only one photo was any good.
July 17 Last night we got back to the land at a little before 8pm and I hurried out to the Last Pool. Before I left in the morning I moved my chair into the woods on the west shore of the pool, up a little ridge and comfortably behind a tree affording a view of the branches of the crown of the cut poplar as they met the brown water of the pool. I think I got to the chair without disturbing any beaver and I think some beavers were there. I soon heard gnawing and saw water rippling, but it soon became clear that the
beavers were either on the other side of the crown or inside the crown. They were not trimming the tree the way I would, cutting back from the top as it were. Indeed, I envisioned a process in which one beaver would swim up the pool, nuzzle into the crown, cut a branch and either eat the leaves and trim it or take it down pond. The twigs and the leaves at the end of the branch bobbing in the water were begging to be eaten. Then that beaver would move off and another move in, or three or four would just range themselves around the outside of the crown. Nothing of the sort happened. Using the camcorder, I thought I saw the nose of the gnawing beaver, and then I saw a small beaver swim away. Was the precocious kit allowed to swim up this far? Perhaps, I didn't get a good view, but if it did, it was now swimming
away. While I was getting the impression that the beavers were not going to show themselves, I realized that the mosquitoes on the fringe of the moist woods were making the most ferocious swarms of the season. I moved my chair closer to the water, and just being a bit out of the woods reduced the swarm by half. I continued to hear beaver gnaws and ripples, and I got the impression that another beaver swam away, perhaps under water. The gnaws continued, then stopped, and that beaver certainly swam down the pool under water. The mosquitoes adjusted to my move and
I headed home. I had plenty of time to feed the Deep Pond beavers. I broke off a large aspen branch and cut a small sapling and headed down the road. As I came up to the dam, I saw both beavers on shore near the lodge. Perhaps these beavers would be
relatively friendly to each other. Usually the beavers here seem uncomfortable if not down right hostile as they try to coexist. I threw the branch and sapling into the water and waited for the beavers to come. The first to swim toward bucked its body into a sloshing tail slap a couple of times, obviously the newcomer. The
beaver more familiar with me swam through the commotion right over to the end of the branch in the water, but it paused as I looked down on it. The other beaver came closer but couldn't bear to come close enough to take a bite. Finally the beaver more
comfortable with my presence came closer but with a show of ferocity. It worked itself up into a hissing pant. I have heard that angry reaction of a beaver a few times but never like this: Huh Huh Uh HUH Hsssssssss, then nip and nibble nibble nibble. Then the other beaver came close enough to nip off a branch and as it swam away seemed to whistle. But I realized that I almost always hear beaver hums from a distance and muffled by the mud and stick walls of a lodge. Perhaps I was hearing a hum as beavers do, rather loud, flute like and capable of imparting a greater range of emotion and information than the often plaintive sounding humming whine. (I think humans are handicapped in taking beaver language seriously because we are so dismissive of a whine.) The hissing beaver, for all its show of power, still
didn't seem comfortable with me, so I walked up the hill to the house.
In the morning I had time enough to walk to the Last Pool and see what work the beavers did on the crown. A large green frog was enjoying the peaceful morning, loath to budge as I bothered it.
Then I studied the crown, looking from the west shore it didn’t look like the beavers had taken anything. Certainly no signs of the big operation I expected to see. After all, the two nights ago they had cut a tree, taken branches down to the lodge and left no remains of it that I could find on shore. It didn’t look like they had taken anything last night.
So I went around to the stump and "climbed" the tree. Getting a view of the crown from that direction, I didn't see any signs of work either.
However when I walked back I saw that beavers had come into the soul of the tree, you might say, at the trunk at the base of the crown and there I could where they had cut one branch and stripped the end
And gnawed on another branch.
The kneejerk reaction is to suggest that they hid in here to be safer from predators, but these beavers commonly walk in the grass and around the woods and up the ridge to find trees to cut and gnaw. It's possible that there is
something special about the taste of bark where branches join the trunk, porcupines seem to relish those portions. But think of the beavers' sense of smell, and it is the smell of aspen which must be a major part of the attraction because I have seen
beavers travel a long way to get it. Here the beaver is completely enveloped in that smell, why work out on the fringes where the wind dissipates what is so enticing? I don't think we'll much understand beavers until we gain some understanding of their appreciation of smells. As I walked down to the Last Pool, I flushed several grouse out of the trees near the cedar towards the inner valley that is a favorite grouse
perch in the winter. Coming back I flushed three grouse from a tree on the other side of the ridge near our cabin. Almost every year a grouse family has been raised in this area. Usually we see the nest, or eggs, or chicks underfoot. Seems a bit early for them to be flying, but this must have been a brood of grouse
fledglings.
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