July 24 another humid day, with a spit of rain in the morning. Those are not conditions for splitting wood but I thought I could at least trim back the bushes on the trails I have been taking to and from the Boundary Pond. I tried to be careful not to disturb any birds that might still be nesting. Trimming Grouse Alley, I saw a nest in a buckthorn that evidently had been worn out with service. The bottom of the nest had fallen through.
It was a delicate weave of pine needles and birch bark. At the end of Grouse Alley I put down my clippers and went to check on the beaver work at the top of the ridge east of Boundary Pond. At the foot of the trail up the ridge, I could see that the beavers had been bringing poplar logs down. There were leafy poplar twigs on the trail.
And when I got up to the tree, where the falling poplar had knocked over an oak crown, I saw that the poplar crown was about gone, and the oak leaves still hanging over the ridge.
The beavers are segmenting the thick branches in the crown. Are they rolling the logs they cut down the trail?
It seems they must be taking what they cut down directly. There are no logs or branches littered along the flat part of the trail heading to the steep way down the ridge.
Although it was about 9:30 am, I heard humming in the lodge, probably from a kit. I should have walked below the dam so as not to alarm the beavers inside the lodge, but thanks to the continuing humidity and off and on rain it was rather wet below the dam and I was wearing tennis shoes. As I walked along the dam, I saw what might be a chunk of the poplar in the water behind the dam.
And at that point along the dam, it looked like something had gone over the dam. It might not be a beaver because I did see a muskrat in the pond the other night. And there is a trail down into the meadow below.
These beavers sometimes lie stripped logs lengthwise behind the dam and then cover them with muck, not sure why. Usually the logs are pushed over the dam or onto the dam and perpendicular to the dam.
I sat up in the chair half way up the ridge to see if a beaver would start humming again. Not for the 20 minutes I sat there. I looked for poplar logs and didn’t see any great collection of them. Perhaps there are a few more stripped logs at the back entrance to the lodge.
I have this notion that the beavers eat back the frogbit and duckweed and then it grows right back. Looking at the channels in the pond through the vegetation, it does look like they tend to get narrower until a beaver eats its way through them.
There was little fresh beaver work, that I could see, on the west shore, until I got up to the curly birch right beside the Last Pool channel. The gnawing looks like it is about to become a cut, or is a beaver just going over and over the same area getting the last bit of inner bark?
The beaver also has a taste for the tree’s roots, and found a bit to gnaw where a root surfaced about three feet from the tree.
I took the drier ripple rock trail back to the house, and saw two thick mushrooms close together at the end of the trail. One had a purple hue,
And the others were a delicious looking brown.
We are going to have to put our mind to identifying some mushrooms.
July 25 another warm humid morning but the winds of change were stirring, coming out of the northwest. We walked down to White Swamp and saw the usual complement of rabbits. There were no ducks down in the portion of the swamp we can see from the road. We did see herons flying far over the swamp and we saw a tern flying erratically, probably a black tern. Then I communed with the Deep Pond, which, because there are no beavers there and seem to be no muskrats, I haven’t paid much attention. I usually see a heron fishing in the pond, but not today. Because herbivores are scarce, and the water level relatively low, the vegetation along the dam is thick with boneset starting to bloom along with the jewel weed, vervain and thistle.
The water lilies are doing well this year, though none were blooming in the morning. (I mowed my trail along the pond in the afternoon, and saw one beauty blooming then.)
When the water level was higher beavers and muskrats had dug out a nook along the shore. The muskrats often pushed up pond vegetation there and nibbled them. Now it looks like the area is thick with the same tall plant that is filling up the now dry edges of wildcat pond. I think it is pilewort that shows its strange flower that never quite blooms late in the summer [I was wrong about that identification].
I went over the knoll, which I haven’t done for some time -- not having beavers here to watch, and the arching honeysuckle almost blocked my way. On the other side I could see a bit of a clearing at the entrance to the beavers’ old bank lodge, but there were so many plants just off from the clearing, like lily pads, that muskrats might eat that I think the clearing is just the result of years of use, not from an animal using the lodge this year.
I saw similar small white flowers, one from a plant on the land,
And the other from the frogbit in the water.
I saw another land flower nearby that I first thought was a small boneset, but I think it is something else. (No, it's boneset.)
From afar it looked like there was a possible trail made by a muskrat or beaver going up the inlet creek, but up close I could see that the silt washing down had made the inlet just a sheet of flowing water about a half-inch deep.
If we get a late summer drought, vegetation will fill it. Here too, on the ground that emerged because the pond is lower, there is a thick swath of pilewort.
Looking back at the first patch of pilewort I saw today, it was easier to see how these new plants stick out.
There is a famous muskrat/beaver burrow along the shore of the pond with a high bank, really several famous burrows, and none of them looked to have been used.
Here again, the clear bottom in front of the hole appeared to be the result of years of use, not recent use. All the lily pads looked intact. As I walked through the meadow back to the road, I flushed a deer, a fawn I think. It certainly had a lush home.
Back on the island, I took a quick hike to check on the otter latrines at the Big Pond and Lost Swamp Pond. The wind was still blowing the humidity away so I had a pleasant walk over ridge and meadows. I looked for black trumpet mushrooms and black raspberries. I saw just a few of the former, all old, and most of the latter were not ripe and those that looked ripe tasted sour. The Big Pond behind the south end of the dam was muddy,
And the grass of the latrine was still matted down. But the bent grass in the pond suggested that a muskrat or beaver had been around. I didn’t see any new scats in the latrine. The way along the dam was not bad, either deer or another person had used the trail I broke a week ago. The nooks along the dam where a beaver had munched twigs and cattail stalks did not look much different than a week ago, until I got out to the north end of the pond. The water there was muddy and cut cattail stalks were in the water.
The dirt of a little clearing humping over the dam was wet, and I could almost see beaver prints in the wet mud below the dam. The trail continued into the meadow below.
Then with my next step something pushed into and under the water. Then I saw the head of a little beaver surface and it made a quick lunging get away dive and disappeared. I waited for five minutes for it to surface but it didn’t. As I scanned the pond I could see more cut cattails along the edge of the pond.
I pushed on to the Lost Swamp Pond. A week ago otters scatted generously at the Big Pond dam, but there was no sign of them at the mossy cove latrine. Today, there was still no sign that otters had been there for the past several weeks. Otherwise, the pond was busy. Some young wood ducks made a quick and characteristically noisy getaway, and two osprey were about. One perched on the dead tree behind the dam and the other flying over the tree.
My bothering soon sent them both off. I checked other mossy areas for otter scats, because the mossy cove latrine was rather thick with goose poop (and perhaps turkey poop because I saw a turkey feather there), the otters might have adjusted,
but I saw no scats. I studied the lodge in the southeast end of the pond, where I think the beavers are.
At the bottom part of the photo above, you can see the wood ducks I scared. I walked around the pond to check the otter latrine at the dam and found nothing new there. The beavers have pushed up a little fresh mud on the dam,
Otherwise there were no signs of beavers. I headed home more or less the way I came. I saw a doe in the meadow west of the Lost Swamp Pond.
As is often the case in the late summer, it seemed loathed to runaway. I didn’t see the beaver I flushed, but I get a better angle for a photo of where it had been working behind the Big Pond dam.
Then we went back to our land and the cooler evening seemed to invite me to go out and look at the beavers, but I was careful to don my upper torso and head mosquito netting. I didn’t see any beavers as I walked along the side of the Last Pool and above Boundary Pond. Then when I sat in the chair above the lodge. I quickly saw that three beavers had been out. Two swam down the channel and into the lodge in quick succession and I could see rippling along the shore where the beaver hut and trail up to the ridge are. Soon enough the beaver doing the rippling swam down to the lodge. It was much slower than the other two and I managed to get a photo, and then it swam below me and then into the lodge.
While the three beavers were out, I heard gnawing in the lodge. So at least four beavers were awake. And just after that third beaver swam into the lodge, another beaver came out. That slow third beaver may have been an adult, but the other two were yearlings. Soon a yearling was up at that “bay” at the foot of the trail. I kept trying to see a beaver coming down the trail, but didn’t. I soon realized that I was seeing the same pattern of behavior I saw over a month ago: three beavers bustling about the pond, the two smaller ones somewhat bothering the larger beaver. I think they knew I was about because the other yearling exited the lodge from the side away from me and very quietly swam up the east shore. The larger beaver used the same exit, but was a bit bolder heading up pond. About three weeks ago I thought I was seeing one beaver keep other beavers away from the east shore by tail slapping and staring intruders down. This evening I heard a ferocious push of water, evidently one beaver shooing the other away. But I was too far away to really make sense of what the contest was about. Next time I come out I will sit over there. I did see a beaver carry a log down from the bay, in that curious riding-a-broom stick fashion that is suddenly popular with this family. Then after a good bit of humming in the lodge, it looked like that same beaver came right back out with the log, and rode it back to the bay. It was as if an adult beaver said, it is too crowded in here, that guy looking at us is no excuse for you to be in here, take the log back outside and gnaw it there. Once again a beaver gnawed on the logs making a larger pile at the side of the lodge near the back entrance.
Another beaver came out too but didn’t get close to the gnawer. I kept hearing humming in the lodge, sometime from a kit, but no kit appeared. However, toward the end of my vigil, 7pm, I think the two adults in the lodge, matriarch and patriarch, appeared. I was thinking of how I first discovered kits here in other years, and recalled that two years ago, the kits kept making fast underwater swims from the lodge, first to the shady east shore and then up the main channel, and as they did the latter, I finally saw them. As I was recalling that, I heard a beaver glug the water in the lodge, and then I saw bubbles in the water. I had the camcorder ready for a kit, but instead the bubbles and a wake slowly made their way up pond and then about 30 yards up the channel, a big beaver surfaced and then moved so slowly I thought it might be sick. Evidently it was catching its breath, because then it dove again and swam up pond. Then another adult beaver swam out of the lodge, surfaced directly and swam slowly up the side channels through the frog bit eating same here and there as it swam along.
Meanwhile I once again saw two beavers up in the bay, probably the yearlings, and then the rippling stopped there and no beavers swam down to the lodge. I cocked my ear for noises up on the ridge, but heard none. I hoped the adult below me would swim over to the bay, and go up the ridge, but it didn’t. It grazed placidly on the frog bit.
The rippling began again in the bay but no yearling hurried out with a fresh log. I think I would have seen them going up the ridge -- the sun lit up a good part of it. They must have done some gnawing on shore. Yes, cutting the poplar on the ridge seems like a big deal to me, but not necessarily to the beavers. Some cedar waxwings were still about, not as many, but this early in the evening there are not as many mosquitoes.
July 26 during a break while splitting logs, I walked by an oak sapling and I saw a wee tree frog sitting on a leaf.
I saved my nature excursion for the early evening. I set off for Boundary Pond ten minutes before 6pm and carried my folding chair across the inner valley and then down the east shore of the pond until I found a shady spot under the hemlocks with a good view of the “bay” where the beavers were so active last night,
And of the ridge where I hope to see a beaver climb up and then down bearing a poplar log.
Yesterday I saw beavers orienting their activity in the bay at 6pm, but today there was no beaver in sight. However, I didn’t lack for excitement. Birds of all sorts were foraging under the hemlocks, and one vireo, I think, took a brief bath in a puddle on the edge of the pond. I also saw a vireo on a branch, as well as a black and white warbler, and a scarlet tanager. I heard the chick-burr alarm call of the tanager most of the time I was there. A big flicker flitted above me from trunk to trunk softly cooing in a way I’ve never heard a flicker do. I also saw a brown creeper on a tree trunk, and I heard ravens and chickadees and nuthatches. Finally a little before 7pm, I saw the head of a beaver in the frogbit beside the main channel of the pond. It was heading toward the bay I was observing, but before it got there it veered off and I lost track of it, which means it probably went down to the lodge since my view in that direction was blocked by the beaver hut in front of me. Then a beaver came up a side channel pausing along the way to eat frogbit,
It continued up a channel that veered from the bay, then swam up beside me, heading up pond,
Where I lost track of it. I waited 10 more minutes for another beaver to appear but none did, so I got up and went up the trail to the poplar they have been working on. The trail looked well used with poplar leaves and twigs littering the way.
Up on the balcony, as I call it, that they walked down to get to the crown of the tree they cut, I saw a very leafy branch that looked easy to haul down the trail.
Then at the foot of the where the crown had been, I saw that a beaver had trimmed off some pine branches.
They didn’t seem to care for oak branches dangling in front of them, but had a taste for pine. The leafy, small branched part of the poplar crown had been cut and carried away
and they cut back the smaller of the crown trunks
to about where they cut the larger, but they did not cut any more of the larger, leaving a chunky log there that a few more gnaws would cut. I got the impression that they might have decided they’ve cut and carried enough from this tree, which might explain why they lost interest in the bay below. Pity, because I was hoping to see which members of the family were coming up here: just the adults or can the yearlings make the climb too? Going down the trail back to the pond, I tried to will a beaver my way, but none came. I eased my way down the shore closer to the lodge, and began to hear humming coming from the lodge and saw a beaver swimming around the lodge. I saw a square shaped boulder ahead and went to sit on the that. Eyes on the boulder, I didn’t see the yearling beaver right in front of me. It slapped its tail, and disappeared. I took a photo of where it had been which struck me as a nice place for a beaver, no saplings to cut but plenty of duckweed and frog bit around a comfortable looking pool of open water.
Heading back up the pond to dinner, I didn’t see any sign of the beaver I saw swim up that way.
July 27 I was wrong. At least one beaver went up the ridge last night. I didn’t do much roaming around today, as the humidity came back, making my wood splitting and water pumping chores a bit more tiring. A little after 5pm I did go down to the Boundary Pond aiming to go up the ridge trail to look for new beaver work. Judging from how quiet it was in the pond yesterday at 6pm, I didn’t expect I’d be bothering any beaver. Then as I walked down the east shore of the pond, I did a double take at what I thought was a large black tree stump right at the edge of the channel. With my next step, the tree stump moved and I saw that it was a beaver, and a large adult at that. It dove and swam down pond underwater. I took a photo of where it had been hunched up eating greens.
The beaver soon surfaced and didn’t seem especially wary.
It swam into some frogbit and began munching it.
But I think it knew I was there because it soon continued swimming down pond and I soon heard a beaver slap its tail in the water outside the lodge. By then I was heading up the ridge. The pine litter has become rather soft and smooth thanks to the beavers’ comings and goings.
I was amazed that what I considered a steep rocky ridge was now so accommodating thanks to the beavers‘ trail, though still steep at places. As I approached the poplar crown, I didn’t see the poplar branch I saw there yesterday. And a beaver cut off and carried away the log at the end of one thick branch that had been hanging for a few days.
More of the crown seemed to have been cut and carried away, and there is plenty of branch left to cut more logs.
So I still have a chance to try to get video of a beaver going up or down the trail. I sat up beside the trail awhile, hoping a beaver might come up it and looking around wondering what else beavers could cut down. I noticed more small twinned green berries under a basswood.
Years in the woods and I finally notice that. There were no many birds around, but the mosquitoes weren’t bad so I lingered. I thought I could see another beaver out in the channels of the pond. I went down the trail to get a better look, but couldn’t spot the beaver. There was a good bit of humming coming out of the lodge. All this activity occurred an hour before it did last night. So I am afraid there is no counting on these beavers, except you are not going to see the kids in good daylight. Well, at least so far. I noticed some striking violet coral mushrooms a couple yards from the pond water.
And as I walked back up pond, I saw what I first noticed yesterday, some pools of water were covered with pollen.
Yesterday when I saw that, I first thought the beavers had been dredging and the pond was muddy there.
July 28 the bird songs are petering out at our land. Early this morning we mostly heard the cuckoo and the towhee. I put in a full morning’s work watering and splitting, as the clouds bunched up. We had a brief shower just after lunch. Then we went to the island and before the next round of rain hit, I biked over to the state park and then hiked to the beaver activity between the East Trail Pond and Shangri-la Pond. On the way I looked around the dead leaves where I saw the non-chlorophyll plant, and I saw another, rather small, dry and brown. One guidebook has a plant with the same bulb-like “flowers” on it, giant bird’s nest, but what I am seeing is not giant. It’s only 6 inches tall. Then I went up and over the ridge to see what the beavers might have done. At the bridge where all the action is I was startled by a vibrant patch of knapweed.
That alien was probably brought in when they built the foot bridge. The pool above the bridge was low, and not muddy.
Can’t say that a beaver had been in there recently. However, the pool below the bridge looked a little more used.
The little dam to the east of the pool was well mudded, and that work looked recent.
The dam to the south was not as mudded, but I could see that the channel there going up into the East Trail Pond meadow was very muddy.
So I think beavers are still around. It is hard for me to see how beavers could survive the winter in this small area in the meadow and between the ponds that they’ve dammed, but they may have something in mind that I can’t fathom -- let’s hope so. I walked up the East Trail and looked back and saw that the beavers began some modest gnawing on two more red maples.
These trees are far from the beavers' favorite food, but this family has cut them and done a pretty good job utilizing the branches and trunk. I continued up the trail and on higher ground saw patches of tall sunflowers.
I hiked along the Ridge and Granite trails and came down along the west end of Audubon Pond. I didn’t see any fresh beaver work over there. I checked below the embankment and the little pond they dammed up still looks like a comfortable place for beavers and they are gnawing into the large tree just below the dam and it looks like they aim to cut it down.
But one of their pathways down looked a bit overgrown. I’ll have to get out here more to get a sense of what the beavers are doing and I probably won’t be able to until the end of August. Meanwhile they continue to try to defeat the drain by building a mud wall around the cage.
They are so persistent this might work, especially if we have a late summer drought and the water level drops so the walls of mud aren’t washed away. But if the water level drops will the beavers still have the impetus to defeat the drain since the drain will go dry. I went down to the otter latrine over the entrance to South Bay and it was all grassy. Nothing had been there, nor at the docking rock latrine. I remember that on my last kayak tour I saw beaver gnawing on a huge willow trunk down near the end of the north cove of the bay. I found that,
but didn’t linger to answer the questions this gnawing poses: what nutritional value does a beaver get out of willow wood? Does a beaver really think it can cut down such a huge squat tree? What is wrong with the lush alders all along this shore? I got home and then we got to our land before a heavy downpour. After the sometimes violent storm, we heard some screeching between our house and the road. Leslie investigated and saw a baby rabbit in agony. Birds all around were giving sharp alarm calls. Then we saw a rather small weasel which Leslie scared away as she approached the bunny. When she retreated the weasel, that had hid under our car, returned and, judging from the receding squeals, took its meal across the road. Tomorrow I’ll look for blood and remains.
July 29 a brief heavy shower kept me inside last night, so this morning I was eager to stretch my legs. I walked down to where the road abuts White Swamp. I passed a hare and a rabbit. The storm yesterday had some gusty winds and many branches were on the road, most dead, but the was a basswood branch with green leaves and those green seeds that after years of walking around here I finally began noticing.
Down at White Swamp, I saw a wood duck, several geese swimming quietly before me anxious to waddle across the road and join a large gaggle of geese in Val’s pasture, and a monarch butterfly.
Before I got to work I looked for signs that a weasel killed a bunny. I didn’t see any blood but did see a faint trail across the road which I would never have noticed if I wasn’t looking for it, but no remains that I could see. Before dinner, I headed off to scout the work on top of the ridge east of Boundary Pond. On my way there I saw that beavers started girdling another birch a bit off the main channel of the Last Pool, on one of the mossy “islands” in the pool.
I kept a look out for beavers even though it was only a little after 4pm, and I didn’t see any. So I climbed up the trail, turned right at the balcony, and a few feet in saw that a beaver cut a smaller tree and hauled it away.
This is the type of work beavers should do this far from the pond. A beavers has been back to work on the poplar too and stripped about a yard of bark off the smaller of the two main branches of the crown. It also started a gnaw that might cut off another log.
No doubt a beaver might have taken more branches down. I’ve somewhat lost track of this crown. I know that every time I come up it seems diminished but I am not quite sure what is gone. I scouted around for other work and saw none. I did see a blooming aster. Then I headed home so as not to alarm the beavers before I come out later. I got to my chair half way up the ridge west of the lodge a little before 8pm. As I approached I stayed away from the pond again so as not to alarm any beavers that might be out in the pond. I came to my chair, instead of staking out the east ridge where I would like to see how many beavers were climbing that steep trail to the poplar, because I wanted to see some kits. I have been hearing them and looking for them for over a month and seeing one, at least, is long overdue. When I sat in my chair, a kit suddenly materialized swimming alone behind the lodge. It turned to face me and seemed to be looking at me, all the while balancing its wee body by sticking its tail straight up in the air.
Meanwhile I was watching and fumbling to get my camcorder out and I just managed to get a brief video of it before it dove into the lodge with a kit’s characteristic flip. Then two beavers swam down pond, two yearlings, I think, and they dove into the lodge, and then an adult beaver swam down and dove into the lodge. When the kit dove into the lodge, there was not a sound. Now with three more bigger beavers in the lodge, there were hums of all sorts. I could tell that beavers still like to munch logs just behind the lodge because the collection of stripped logs there seemed to be growing.
Then as I sat back, battling mosquitoes who seemed quite revived by last night’s rain, I heard a strange noise in a tree behind me and thought for a moment that a porcupine was up there and in distress because it finally noticed me. Then a flicker flew closer and made even more curious noises. I usually associate two sounds with a flicker, its sharp call and the “wuckawucka” chortle. In these woods at least, the flickers have a whole range of sounds from a mammal like cry to a bubbly yodel. I also heard the sounds I was already familiar with. It soon flew off and cedar waxwings after mosquitoes were the only birds about. Soon enough a beaver swam down the channel, made a shallow dive and surfaced with its back matted with frogbit vines.
It gnawed the logs floating in the water briefly and then dove into the lodge. Then it seemed one beaver after another glugged out of the lodge and gnawed the logs floating behind it.
They vigorously addressed the logs. One attacking from the right and then after it swam off another beaver came out and gnawed from the other direction.
I got the impression these were two different adults because I think one swam up pond. One did go back into the lodge because it came back out and a yearling came out with it. The adult gnawed the log and then when the yearling came up with insistent hums, just like I’ve seen before, the adult swam away from the logs and let the yearling have a go at them.
Meanwhile I saw a small beaver come out of the entrance right below me, but it quickly swam down toward the dam and while I thought it might be a kit, I wasn’t sure. Then when the yearling quit nibbling the logs behind the lodge, and followed the adult up pond, a kit appeared off to the side, and it swam up to the logs, a bit awkwardly, and managed to get its nose up into some sticks, but I don’t think it got any satisfaction. Then it swam below me and almost around the lodge but turned back and dove into the lodge using the entrance below me. While that kit was out, I didn’t hear any humming inside the lodge, nor was there any when it went back in. Things in general began to quiet down save for some beaver gnawing not too far up pond. There was a lull in the mosquitoes, but it was getting dark and I had finally seen a kit, perhaps two. So I headed home while I still had enough light to look at the pond below, but I still couldn’t spot the beavers that I thought were up pond. I didn’t notice any action over in the “bay” below the trail up to the ridge.
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