July 11 I headed off after dinner to check on the beavers in the small pool between the East Trail Pond meadow and the Shangri-la Pond meadow, and I wanted to check on the Audubon Pond beavers, as well as check on the otter latrines along the north shore of South Bay. Since time was short, I rode a bike over to the entrance to the state park. I wasn’t sure what to expect as I headed up the East Trail. I looked for trees that might have been freshly cut down along the upper East Trail Pond meadow, but saw none. Then when I got to the upper pool that the beavers had fashioned by making a little dam almost below the foot bridge that carries the trail over the little creek, I saw a beaver swimming below me in the pool.
Well, it was hardly swimming. Rather it was floating rather aimlessly, as far as I could tell. It exhibited no alarm at my looking at it. After getting photos and some video, I continued across the bridge, and continued up the trail. The beaver seemed to follow me with its eyes.
I stepped back farther to give it room to do something and get a photo to show the small pool of water it was in.
Then when it crawled over the dam, and headed down into the next small pool, I hurried to follow and got a photo of it crawling over the lower dam.
The dark spot between the cattails in the photo below is not the beaver, but I had seen the beaver move up that narrow trail.
I hurried down on the old boardwalk to the spot where I could get a view of the central channel through the marsh in the upper East Trail. I saw the beaver swim up that too, and then took a photo of where it had been.
It was headed up pond so I headed for the ridge overlooking that pond. I pulled up short, still on the boardwalk, because I saw a striking brown moth fluttering around the button bushes. It settled on a leaf and I took photos.
I also had to admire the blooming buttons on the button bushes.
When I got up on the ridge overlooking the meadow that engulfs the channels of the upper part of the pond,
I sat and listened for ripples in the water below, because it was pretty difficult to see them. I heard some but I also heard green frogs. Then I saw some ripples broadcast almost below me and soon saw that a muskrat was eating and collecting grasses. The photo below shows where the muskrat was, but not the animal itself.
It swam back with its grasses toward the old lodge. I walked over along the ridge to get a look down there. I didn’t see the muskrat again, nor signs of beavers having been there, other than what looked like a cut swath coming out from the shrubs and up onto the ridge.
I strained to see a stripped stick, but didn’t see any. Back when this pond was brimming with water, the beavers had a bank lodge over on the south shore across from where I was standing. So I walked around the west end of the pond and over to that shore but I couldn’t find any remnants of the old bank lodge, nor any signs that beavers had been using the narrow channels of water that still snake through the cattails and grasses.
I did hear the cry of a Fowler’s toad, and I should report that almost the whole time I was there, a red tail hawk screeched over the meadow. I went to Audubon Pond by walking just south of Thicket and Meander ponds. There is water in both ponds but no signs of beavers being in them now, at least along the south shore. Two deer jumped up the ridge as I skirted the meadow south of Meander Pond dam. As usual I picked up a deer trail through the woods below the ridge, and saw a deer standing in my way, about 50 yards away.
I expected it to run up the ridge too, but it seemed curious to see what was coming down the deer trail, and gave me some very hard looks as I got within 10 yards of it.
It stamped about a bit as it walked back and forth, flicking bugs away with its ears and tail, then it slowly walked over to the foot of the ridge. I was losing my light so I didn’t linger. Hurry though I tried, nature seemed determined to distract me. I heard and then saw a small porcupine climb up a leaning ash tree.
I decided to walk around Audubon Pond on the outer trail, go down to South Bay to check the otter latrine overlooking the entrance to South Bay, and then come back to Audubon Pond hoping to catch beavers in the smaller pond below the embankment. Of course I kept looking for beavers and got around Audubon Pond without seeing one, and then as I veered down toward the bay, a beaver in the middle of the pond slapped its tail. I was rather far away, but these beavers commonly react to me from afar. Then I saw another beaver swimming from the embankment toward the beaver in the middle of the pond and it struck me that the two beavers might be having a rencountre. Indeed, the beaver swimming back from the embankment slapped its tail. I would have stayed to watch, but a southwest wind was at my back. So after checking the otter latrine, where I didn’t see any fresh scats but did see two crayfish parts up in the grasses where otters have often scatted, I came up on Audubon Pond from the southeast. This didn’t fool one beaver and it soon slapped its tail at me. I didn’t see the other beaver. It certainly wasn’t down in the pond below the embankment though it was getting dark and I am not sure I could have seen it if it was there. These beavers always seem to slap at me and I always only see one or two. I’m getting the impression that none of the beavers I watch on the island had kits this year, but I’ll keep looking.
July 15 we went away for a few days and came back to a dry garden with too many beans. So watering and picking with Leslie kept me away from the beaver pond. Plus it was hot and returning to the mosquitoes takes some getting used to, so I postponed my check on the beavers until today. I also forget to bring my camera to the land yesterday so I didn’t poke around during the day. I did walk down the road to White Swamp and saw gallinules with ducklings, and a green heron. Meanwhile the red eyed vireo and wood thrushes have been around our house. After dinner I headed off to see the beavers, carrying camera, camcorder, and bug spray. I had mosquito netting for my head. For most of the time I had the mosquitoes checked but they bothered me enough to make my beaver watching seem disjointed. I heard hums of all pitches coming from the lodge with the kit sounds loud enough to have me expecting a kit to come out of the lodge any second.
But first a juvenile beaver came out and swam up pond taking a circuitous route below me. I last saw it veering over to the west shore where frogbit was thick.
Then after more hums from the lodge, an adult beaver came out of the lodge and eventually swam below evidently not reacting to my being there.
That adult swam behind the dam and then went up pond using the channel along the east shore. I only saw two more beavers. The first seemed to be bringing sticks over from the dam area and taking them up on the lodge and taking some pains to position the sticks, perhaps weaving them into the woody fabric of the lodge. Meanwhile I heard some splashing around the lodge and looked too late to see what caused that. Kits don’t splash that loudly but a beaver teaching kits to dive might. But if kits were out, I missed them, I did see a beaver diving into the muck just behind the dam and then bringing muck on the back edge of the dam. Working on the lodge is something beavers do in the late fall and even dam work is a bit rare on a dry summer day. Both beavers went back into the lodge and for 20 minutes I heard sporadic hums, but no beavers, let alone kits, came out. The night time mosquito swarms got into high gear. I noticed that the cedar wax wings that had been out nabbing mosquitoes the whole time I was there, now flew up higher. Using the last of the daylight to advantage. A hermit thrust started singing with very liquid notes like it was making a point to sing most sweetly now that the young are out and about, as I presume they must be. So I missed seeing kits again. Maybe I will come out around 6pm, maybe that’s when they are allowed to run around the pond.
July 16 we had heavy rain in the morning which saved us from having to water the gardens. The clouds broke in the afternoon and then the wind picked up promising a cooler walk around the beaver ponds but the rain seemed to have given life to new legions of deer flies and mosquitoes. Plus at this season when the vegetation is thick and high, the wind doesn’t quite cool down the meadow above the beaver ponds. I crossed it with a dozen deer flies keeping me company. I went to the pool on the fringe of the wood below the ridge to the east. During most summers it is almost dry by now but this year it still has half its water, and I saw a few small frogs jump off a log into the pool.
There was no beaver work around it. Nearby I noticed a spread of plants with a long stalk coming up from a foot high plant with dark green leaves arranged in a pleasing pattern. One stalk had small pink flowers; other stalks had a dozen small rectangular green seeds. I think it is naked-flowered tickseed trefoil.
It would have been easier to take photos of mushrooms, and I should make a study of the difference between those in this sandstone area and the granite areas of Wellesley Island. But in the woods the mosquitoes joined the deer flies and I reserved leaving myself defenseless as I took photos for documenting the beaver activity. There wasn’t much to document. All the hemlock stripping seemed as I had left it several days ago. Until I got to a line of smaller hemlocks behind the beaver’s hut. I’ll have to check old photos, but I think this is new work.
I peeked into the hut
and I think there are no changes there, but again I’ll have to look at old photos.
I walked up the trail behind the hut, and followed it straight up the ridge. A few yards up there is a maple they almost girdled and there seemed to be no new work on it. The trail up looked fresh and a third of the way up the trail split.
I followed the fresh path that took me up so sharply that I slipped. When I got up the steep section, of about five yards,
I saw that the beavers had cut a maple, trimmed all the branches off it and cut some logs off
and were about to cut some more.
Much of the bark had been stripped off too. Since there is a maple at the bottom of the ridge much like this one that they cut, I don’t think I can say they made this climb solely to get a bite of maple tree. Could this be another ploy of the mother beaver to get away from her kits, and yearlings? (I have noticed in other ponds in other years that yearlings seem to make a play for the affections of the adults perhaps because they are jealous of the attentions the kits are getting.) On the other hand, while it may be difficult for a beaver to get up such a steep slope, it is much easier bringing logs and branches down, especially on this ridge which has much less vegetation than the west ridge which gets much more sunshine since there are fewer large trees and hemlocks along it casting shade. I didn’t see any more work though I think they are eating the frogbit and duckweed along the shores of the pond. Last night I saw beavers working on the lodge and dam but in the light of day I could not pinpoint what they did.
I sat up in the chair on the ridge for about 15 minutes and I heard a few faint hums.
The wind played on the pond surface and sometimes a jumping frog added to the ripples. Then I saw an upwelling of ripples in the channel a bit up pond. I doubted the wind could make that bold a play. Sure enough the upwelling continued and an adult beaver surfaced behind the lodge and then quickly dove into the lodge, just before I snapped the photo below.
It was not greeted with a single hum. Obviously it tried to conceal itself, since it made its way down pond entirely underwater. But could all the kits, yearlings and the other adult have been sound asleep? I waited 5 more minutes for something to happen, nothing did and I walked up pond along the shore. I tried to picture swimming up the trails through the frogbit and coming up to eat the green grasses along the shore.
I saw that a beaver had cut a small hemlock on one of the “islands” in the middle of the Last Pool, but I didn’t see any more fresh tree cutting or stripping.
There are trails through the frogbit and duckweed heading to the shore and it certainly looks like a beaver walked on up, but looking around I couldn’t see any work.
Maybe I should check the high ridges to the west, but, to me, the Last Pool itself looks like a beaver paradise.
The wallow above the Last Pool was muddy but the trail above that seemed unused. After dinner and before dark I walked down the road and checked on the other ponds that in other years entertained me with beaver activity. The Teepee Pond is quite full and surprisingly has little vegetation growing on or out of the water.
I think there are too many turtles here. Not that I saw any this evening. I did hear a bullfrog. But if there is a lack of vegetation coming out of the pond, there is a jungle along the shore. My photo of the blue vervain with the blue pickeral weed in the background did not come out, but the boneset looked good.
The thistle plants were fuzzy in regular shots, but striking in a macro close-up.
I didn’t sit by the pond as the mosquitoes here seemed interested in me. Walking down to the Deep Pond along the road, I saw three rabbits and I see three about every time I walk down the road.
Last year the Deep Pond had two resident beavers and they entertained me when the ferocity of the bugs kept me away from Boundary Pond. Without beavers around, the pond is lower and the vegetation in the pond is thickening and spreading.
But the most telling difference is along the dam where tall grasses are drowning the vervain and jewel weed.
Now and then I've see hints that a muskrat is here. Perhaps one, because a family of them would nibble this vegetation back somewhat. I did see a trail along the edge of the pond which could have been made by a muskrat.
But a turtle could have done that or raccoons. (As we were sleeping last night baby raccoons walked around the house making sweet almost birdlike chortling.) And as usual the Joe-Pye weed begins to tour over me.
July 17 the weather is slowly changing, cooling down slowly, and I did work three hours sawing logs into firewood, by hand, never with machines. I tried working in the afternoon to see if the mosquitoes might be manageable without bug spray, but while there were fewer, the ones that were about seemed to be especially adept at getting my blood. Then we had a dramatic storm with a very brief down pour. So it wasn’t until after dinner that I addressed my nagging problem: seeing the beaver kits. With that bit of rain and continued warmth I knew the mosquitoes would be bad so I rigged a mosquito netting shirt and hood and headed for Boundary Pond. The mosquitoes were bad enough so that I had to zip up the hood which kept them from biting me but obscured my view of the pond below.
Briefly everything seemed quiet. Then a yearling swam into view evidently coming down pond and dove into the lodge before I could get a photo. It was not greeted with hums. And then a few minutes later another yearling came down pond and quickly dove into the lodge before I could get a photo. And still there were no hums. Then a third beaver, either yearling or two year old, swam down pond and before diving lingered long enough to take a stripped stick down into the lodge with it. Again there was no humming from the lodge. Then several minutes later I finally heard some gnawing and then humming, some of it insistent and high pitched -- kits, at least two, I decided. But none came out. A yearling came out from the entrance facing me and swam around the lodge toward the dam. Then a yearling came out of the entrance behind the lodge and swam up pond. I have grown accustomed to beavers swimming below me, not in alarm but as if they wanted to get a whiff of me. Tonight I was being completely ignored. I don’t think that is because the beavers didn’t know I was there. Just as I can easily hear their hums, gnaws and splashes from inside their lodge, so I am sure they can hear my shifting in the chair. I continued to hear humming both adult and kittish. Then an adult came out of the lodge and headed up pond, and fast on its tail another beaver came out, probably an adult, and followed. By now it was getting dark and peering through mosquito netting all looked darker. I unzipped the visor, so to speak, and although four beavers had just gone out, I couldn’t see any in the pond. In a few minutes I heard some gnawing and I saw an adult beaver browsing some low woody vegetation or starting to gnaw a big ash tree, I couldn’t be sure which. But where were the kits? Soon I zipped up the netting and waited through the early dark and the swarms of mosquitoes that brings. I saw that a bat had taken over eating them from the small flock of cedar waxwings. But from 8:50 to 9:15 I didn’t hear any noises from the lodge. I suppose I’ll have to try a stealthier approach. Perhaps I have become too familiar with these proud animals.
July 18 I took a morning walk down to White Swamp and saw the ganninules again. Actually I like calling them moor hens better. While the ducklings scampered for the grasses, the mother coolly shielded them from me.
I didn’t see the green heron this morning. I did see a beautiful butterfly on a leaf drying in the sun.
At the deep pond, some water lilies were blooming.
After doing chores I headed off to check on the maple the beavers cut up on the ridge east of the pond. I thought that if it looked like they had gone there again last night, then I might park myself up there this evening. Heading through the damp woods to the inner valley I saw mushrooms being put to good use by a millipede
And by a slug.
The latter was surely in the catbird seat, so to speak. The goldenrod in the inner valley isn’t in bloom yet. The deer flies there were positively insane. As I climbed the ridge I tried to find an easy way in case I did come in the evening, but the ridge is rather intricate with intersecting balconies, so to speak. The only direct route is the long way: getting to the crest and trying to stay there. Anyway when I got to the cut maple, it seemed pretty obvious that the beavers had not been there last night.
I don’t think there is any logical way to explain it, but after looking at hundreds of trees cut, trimmed and stripped by beavers I can sort of sense when that the job is done, even through there is bark yet to strip and logs yet to cut off. We’ll see. I went down to the pond and took a photo of the hemlocks they’ve been stripping. And comparing the photo below with one I took two days ago, it does look like a beaver stripped a little more off the hemlock in the rear of the group.
Heading up the pond, I kept an eye out for a beaver in the pond, because I think one or two spends much of the day out in the pond, but I didn’t see any beavers. I did see the fresh bleeding girdle of a birch midway up the west shore of the Last Pool.
On my way back to the house, I took the ripple rock trail and right in the middle of my path, I saw that a grouse had fashioned a dust bath pit for itself.
Nice to think my walking back and forth might have smoothed the way for a grouse’s pleasure. In the evening I decided to approach the Boundary Pond lodge from the west ridge. I was careful not to walk along the Last Pool, as I usually do before I go up the ridge. Tonight I walked to the end of Grouse Alley, then up the first gulley well back from the ridge overlooking the beaver pond. And then I didn’t sit in my chair. I sat up on the ridge, where there seemed be even more mosquitoes, and watched the pond below. I was too far away to hear humming in the lodge. Like last night I saw a beaver swim down pond and then directly in the lodge. I was hoping to see more hanging around the lodge, figuring that would be an invitation for the kits to come out and get the hang of the pond. Then I did see a beaver come out, a yearling, and poke around in a more leisurely fashion before going back into the lodge. That was promising. I walked down the ridge a bit to get closer and thought the game might be up when a beaver suddenly swam around to the back entrance and seemed to look at me before it dove. And when it got into the lodge and it made a sharp hum. “He’s up there again!” I feared he said. But probably not, for soon after I heard about 15 minutes of insistent hums from the kit, or so I think. Alas, no kit came out to hum before the camcorder for me. A yearling came out and worked the shore below me leisurely before heading up pond. So for sure the beavers were more relaxed than last night, and instead of all exiting the lodge, they seemed to come to it. One yearling came back carrying a leafy twig and I heard gnawing once it got into the lodge. Then an adult appeared in front of the lodge, when it was almost too dark to see, and dove into it, not away from it. But like last night, after about 8:45 the lodge got very quiet. Darkness closed in earlier tonight thanks to an approaching front. So I gladly quit my post. The mosquitoes were reaching a crescendo. So perhaps it is not my presence keeping the kits inside the lodge. I know beavers are on a different clock than we humans, but I don’t think there is an easy formula to use to determine when they are active. I think I suggested it to myself before: come out at 6pm. Or brave the mosquitoes at dawn. I should add that in the woods away from the beaver ponds there seem to be fewer mosquitoes. So the beavers have created the conditions for the over powering swarms. I won’t take that personally.
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