September 1 I got up at 4:30am, had a light breakfast and was off in the kayak by 4:45. I knew this was well before dawn, but the light of the waning moon was inviting and I think the otters fish in the dark. I might not be able to see them but I might be able to hear them. There was a nice complement of stars despite the moonlight, and there was a planet in the west to aim for. In this moon lit gloaming I noticed how the granite outcrops glowed which might explain why otters latrine there. In the dark they are an even more noticeable landmark than during the day. I faced a steady wind and then in Eel Bay it almost turned some waves into white caps. Until the wind forced me to paddle hard, I stopped periodically to listen and heard nothing. I disturbed one heron and earned an angry croak as it flew off. I saw my first gulls when I was half way up Eel Bay to Quarry Point. They were flying toward the channel between Picton and Grinnel which is where I expected the otters to be. This expectation was based solely on the fact that I saw four otters there on June 22 and I had not seen otter signs in the Wellesley Island beaver ponds in four weeks, nor any scats around South Bay. The wind presented a problem. I could park my kayak on the lee side of Picton but the wind in the channel would spread my odor as I paddled west along the Picton shore. However, it was too dark to see anything if I looked to the west, so I had to go down the channel far enough so that I could look back to the east and, hopefully, see the otters fishing in the dawning light. Thanks to an angle on the Picton shore I could find a spot behind some boulders about 10 yards offshore that was out of the wind. A good place to be. Then in a matter of minutes I heard what might be an otter snort. I heard a glug and a slight splash. Then I heard a definite otter snort coming from the shore right to my side, and then in the dim light I saw the head of one otter framed by the granite boulders littering the shore below the quarry. I didn’t have a camera or camcorder, my general rule when I kayak, so I paddled quietly back out into the channel to give the otter room. At first I kept studying the shore where I saw the otter but I heard no more from it nor saw it. So, staying out in the channel I paddled more the to the west to get a broader view of the channel. It was now light enough to see and I let the seagulls who frequently swooped down to pick things to eat off the river direct my gaze. I did have binoculars but still didn’t see an otter. So I paddled closer to shore and then slowly began paddling along the shore heading east hoping at least see that one otter again. I saw a nice array of otter scat on one of the boulders jutting out, which suggested that there were more than one otter around. (The photo below is one I took on September 3.)
I kept hearing splashing behind me but I could see in front of me that when a seagull swooped down on the water it usually made a splash. I did see one large fish jump. Fortunately the first fisherman to show up chose to fish at a spot well to the west in the middle of the channel. But at every splash behind my back I turned, and finally I saw a head of an otter swimming from the middle of the channel toward the Picton shore. I quickly paddled back out to the channel and then paddled slowly, very slowly, toward where the otter had gone. It was just getting bright enough to see the under the tall trees along the shore. And under a pine, where I have now and then seen otter scats, I saw two otters sniffing the ground and one, at least, scatting. They slipped back into the water and swam to the east along the shore, not fishing, With their heads out. They were easy to follow. I trained the binoculars on them and at first I thought they were climbing a tree. I had to drop the binoculars to see that they were climbing up a fallen tree trunk that made climbing up that part of the steep shore easier. Just beyond the upper end of the trunk, there was a small pine tree, and I saw three otters there. The otters pranced about briefly and then one at least slid down on the slope until it gained the tree trunk. It was easy to see a well used slide 5 or 10 yards long heading down with a slight undulation. I’ll get a photo of the slide latter.
The three otters continued swimming up the shore and then the wind at my back finally betrayed me. I began hearing snorts and soon saw one otter with its head up under an overhanging boulder snorting at me, and then saw another otter farther up the shore, also under a boulder, also snorting at me. So I had much to think about as I paddled home. When I saw the three otters up on the slope, I thought one looked bigger. However, the other two otters certainly weren’t pup. All the otters had their mature markings that white vest under their chin. I can’t help but think that this is the same family of otters that I saw here last summer, a mother and three pups. So perhaps I saw the mother and two juveniles. Of course, I would like to think it was the three grown pups and that the mother was off tending a new litter of pups. The fact that I didn’t see them fishing together is also interesting. When I saw them in June I saw them fishing in groups of two and three. Gobies are reportedly the fish of choice for foraging cormorants. Ottoleo, who sees gobies when he snorkels, tells me that they don’t school together like perch and sunnies, and he sees them everywhere underwater. So perhaps otters find gobies as easy to catch as the cormorants do and that they do no need to use the coordinated foraging with other otters as they do when after perch and bullheads. By the time I got back home at 7:30, it was hot enough to work up a sweat. The night wind was dying. I napped and stayed inside most of the hot humid day. But when we got to our land just before dark, I hurried out to check on the beavers. It was too dark to really see them, but I heard at least two gnawing on logs next to the lodge, in the area where I had removed the kit carcass. I heard splashing up pond, but as I walked up the ridge and then the shore of the Last Pool, I heard no gnawing.
September 2 another hot and humid day, but more clouds which gave us some relief. I went out to check on the Boundary Pond beavers at 6pm. When I got to my chair half way up the ridge west of the pond, I saw an adult beaver munching frogbit in the upper west side of the pond. And I heard a kit humming inside the lodge. I took a photo of the lodge and channels around it that are marked by the frogbit.
It was easy to see the channel the beavers use up the east side of the pond. Turning the camera toward the dam, I could see the channel the beavers use to get up on the ridge west of the pond.
And the surface of the water was clear behind the dam. Looking up pond, the channels branched off toward both shores.
At 6:10 pm, I saw a yearling surface behind the lodge and then it dove right back in. I occasionally heard the kit whine. Then at 6:23 a yearling came out and swam up the main channel and out of my sight. A few minutes later a beaver came out from the east entrance to lodge and swam up the channel along the east shore and then when it got to the main channel, I saw that it was the other yearling. It also swam up pond and out of sight. Meanwhile the adult I first saw was still munching frogbit along the west side of the pond.
I still now and then heard a kit hum inside the lodge. If there was no other adult inside lodge with it, then the adult female beaver I saw floating dead in the Teepee may well be the matriarch of this family. Then I heard a brief hum from an adult beaver coming from inside the lodge. Then what I first thought was one beaver surfaced between the lodge and dam and quickly dove, swimming to the east. I didn’t get a good photo,
But the photo shows the back of the diving beaver, and a kit following it. A diving adult beaver does not lift its tail up when it dives, unless it is slapping its tail. When the beaver surfaced on the east side of the lodge, through the camcorder I could see the adult with the kit trying to hitch a ride.
The fur of the adult was reddish, and the fur of what I earlier thought was the mother was reddish. So I think there are still two adults in this pond. The kit stayed close to its mother until she dove and swam several yards under water. The kit didn’t follow. Usually adults continue about their business leaving the kit to catch up, but this time the mother turned and looked for the kit. Then I momentarily lost track of both mother and kit, until I heard the kit whine and then saw the beaver with the black fur swim down a channel through the frogbit, and soon the kit followed it. They both started munching several yards apart.
The kit is hard to see in the photo, which was not the case most of the time because it kept its tail raised straight up. I captured that with the camcorder.
Then I saw ripples in what I have been calling the “bay” over along the east shore, which had been a popular place for the beavers to feed. The beaver there swam out into the main channel and I saw that it was the adult with reddish fur. So I think the kit swam out of the lodge with its mother, keeping close to her, and then when she went to far ahead, the kit joined its father. So I don’t think the dead adult beaver was from this pond. Losing one kit seems to have changed the behavior of the remaining beavers. The kit seems more careful to come out and stay near a parent, and the parents seem to be keeping better track of the kit. These are sensible measures, but makes for duller theatre in the pond. I waited a bit to see if father and kit would swim down and eat the frogbit closer to me, but they just inched through what they were eating. So I walked up pond expecting to see the two yearlings and mother, but even with very good light -- just after 7 pm, I didn’t see them. I did see more girdling along the channel
But no trees have been cut along the pond. In case the beavers were working the west ridge above the Last Pool, I had camera cocked and ready as I walked that way, but I got no candid photos of a beaver surprised by my presence on their trail. When I went to the cabin, which is a bit up from our little house, I took a photo of the kit jaws that I had stripped of flesh, muscle, and what else I could scrape off, and now had airing out.
With a little work, I can get it in good enough shape to mount next an adult skull.
September 3 we spent the night at our land -- and I heard coyotes nearby at around 2am. Then I woke up at 4:45am and drove back to the island and was in my kayak at 5:15 am. The moon had waned a good bit more and was half as bright as two nights ago. So the planet in the east provided even more of a target to aim for. The wind was light and from the south, so I paddled out to Picton faster than I did two dawns ago. I was patrolling the shore off Picton as the sky quenched the stars.
There weren’t as many gulls around at first and as I continued to not see otters, I wondered if they knew the otters were gone. But as the morning wore on, more gulls came and found morsels floating in the channel between Picton and Grindstone worth fighting over. I paddled back up along the Picton shore where I saw otters two mornings ago, hoping to elicit a snort. No luck. I went around Quarry Point and checked the bay there, where two yachts were moored, and saw no otters. The light was bright enough to see no obvious piles of otter scats on Quarry Point. Once the sun was up, I paddled back down along the northeast shore of the island where I had hoped to see the otters and took photos of where I had seem them last time, though it is melancholy task to take photos of where otters have been and should be but aren’t. A bit beyond the pine litter latrine where I had seen them two mornings ago,
I saw a rock along the shore that had dollops of fresh otter scats on it.
The first indication I had that these were fresh scats were the bumble bees I saw flying around it. However, while a few bees flew over the big piles of scat, most were seemingly glued to what must have be touches of scat at the edge of the boulder.
However, what I could see and smell of the scats themselves convinced me that these were very fresh scats. I could see fish parts in the scats that scavenging birds would soon consume.
These scats suggested that the otters had just been here, having fished in the night, scatted and gone back to their den before the sky brightened. I also took a photo of the slope where I saw an otter slide,
And the rocky shore where otters under rock ledges snorted at me.
Since the wind was lighter the morning was hotter than two days ago. The gulls seemed relatively energetic but the cormorants seemed a bit lazy about diving after fish. As I paddled toward the Narrows, I saw shiners jumping out of the water and even took a video with my camera hoping to get a still showing one of the leaps.
But I needed a wide angle lens to really capture the scene of the fries’ exertions.
September 4 we had rain in the night and the wind picked up, partly because of the cold front moving through and partly because of a hurricane off the coast of New England. The rain was mostly lake effect. When the rain stopped, the sun shone brightly, and then I went down to check the beaver ponds. The wallow above the Last Pool was muddy and I wasn’t sure if that resulted solely from the rain raising the water level or because a beaver wallowed through as it went over to cut another prickly ash.
The poplar nearby that the beavers had cut around was still standing. The wind is supposed to get stronger but my guess is that this tree has not been cut enough for it to be blown over. Then a few yards down the east shore of the Last Pool, I saw where a beaver had cut a hornbeam and left most of the trunk.
The crown of the tree had been cut and dragged over to the water.
But I noticed two interesting things about this operation. The beavers left a small log by the trunk that had been formed by cutting in three places.
I can’t quite figure out why this log was left behind, or cut in that way. Obviously a beaver prizes larger pieces of trees, especially parts with leaves, and beavers might not recognize, let alone prize, efficiency, but I have seen countless trees cut and segmented efficiently with nothing left behind. I found where the tree was cut and saw that two smaller trunks of a group of three trunks had been cut.
The larger trunk, which still looked to be of optimal size for a beaver to cut, was dead. Beavers always seem to ignore dead standing tree trunks (they will cut dead trunks blocking their trails.) Yet they never bite them. Since their sense of smell is stronger than their vision, I assume that they can smell that they are dead, and of no nutritional value. (However, dead trees could be used for dams and lodges.) The other night as I walked along the west ridge, I saw that beavers had girdled a tree along the east shore. I took a photo of it, and think it is an elm.
In other years they were quick to cut down elms, but not this year. Indeed, this year they have cut down few trees. Perhaps they are waiting for the fall. I didn’t see any other new work along the east shore and the two trails up the ridge did not look freshly trodden upon, so I didn’t go up them. I walked below the dam, and saw that a beaver cut down and began gnawing a small tree there.
Then I went up the west ridge where they had cut and segmented a tree. I am getting used to seeing work up on the ridges abandoned, but to my surprise, a beaver came up here and hauled down the log cut off the trunk,
And more of the remaining trunk had been gnawed.
I didn’t see any more trees worked on up there. I headed along the ridge, going up pond, and looking down, saw that a beaver began girdling another maple next to the maple they just girdled.
Will they cut these down? Maples have plenty of branches and leaves that will begin dying in a few weeks. When I got down along the west shore of the Last Pool, I saw a cut sapling leaning on the slope to the west, that I had not noticed before. I walked up to where they had been cutting maple saplings in the woods west of the valley above the Last Pool, but saw no fresh work. Then I walked up to the Teepee Pond and saw muddy water, not much, in the northeast corner of the pond, right where there used to be a muskrat burrow.
I looked around on the shore, and saw no muskrat nibbling, and saw no muskrat signs in the First Pond. I continued up to the pool above the First Pool, that refilled with water after the heavy rain. I saw a few frogs making themselves at home, but nothing else.
Going up that way I got a whiff of the beaver carcasses I buried. I think something had nosed down to where the kit is buried letting odor escape. I could see maggots in the dirt over both carcasses. I didn’t bury them very deep. Due to the brisk wind, I didn’t go out to check on the beavers in the evening, which was fine with me. I need a little break from seeing them, having to think about and adjust to the death of the kit. Will the remaining kit be pampered or ignored? Or should I not get swept up in a drama so easy to sentimentalize and instead study the two yearlings?
September 5 on my morning walk down the road I checked on the flowers around the Deep Pond and I saw that the tall plants with yellow flowers were in their glory in those places that the beavers kept trim.
I saw that these flowers were bur-marigolds.
They always bloom around this pond but usually the plants are smaller, not much higher than one foot.
These exuberant patches are formed by plant 4 to 5 feet tall.
Bur-marigolds are common around the beaver ponds on the island, and were especially vigorous the year after beavers left a pond. Before I did more tree work, I walked down to the Last Pool just to see if the strong winds of yesterday with gusts up to 30 miles an hour blew down the large poplar the beavers were cutting. No. I also walked up the beaver trail into the woods on the small ridge west of the valley above the Last Pool. Once again I am getting the impression that a beaver has been cutting something back there, and I see a small stump I don’t think I noticed before, but I can’t be sure. On our drive back to the island we saw four large white birds in the big pond along the road where we saw a pair of them a few days ago. I tried to get close to them and sent them into the air.
These birds had black legs and I’d be comfortable calling them egrets. They seemed a little smaller than herons. Usually when I’ve seen these white birds, they’ve been with a blue heron and looked to be the same size. As usual we came back to our land before dinner, and after dinner I went out to check on the beavers. As I walked my usual route of late, keeping along the first gully and ridge rising from Grouse Alley so that I wouldn’t disturb any beavers in the Last Pool, I noticed that a tree had fallen. I thought the recent heavy wind might have blown it down, but the leaves in the crown looked a little dull.
I went up and saw that beavers had cut down a red oak and there was another one about the same size next to it that had been untouched.
This area looked to be rather inaccessible to beavers coming from the pond. It was just back from a shear ledge of rock. Then I saw a trail coming down the ridge to this area. Following that I found the stumps of three trees that beavers had recently cut, well two certainly were, but one stump was rather tall suggesting it might have been cut in the winter.
The trail from those stumps led under an old fallen trunk and on the other side of that
there was an easy incline leading back to the Last Pool.
Obviously beavers have been cutting here for a week or so, if not more. I don’t know how I missed seeing this work. Just as they did up on the east ridge, the beavers cut small red oaks. I wanted to conclude that the beavers were interested in the acorns, but small red oaks, like they are cutting, are too immature to produce acorns. A few years ago I did see the adult beavers at Shangri-la Pond nosing around under large red oaks and eating acorns. I continued up the ridge to my usual station, in my chair half way up the slope west of the beaver lodge in Boundary Pond. Unlike the last few times I came here in the evening, I didn’t see any beavers in the pond nor did I hear an noises in the lodge. It was 7 o’clock and a few nights ago, at that time, I had seen the kit, and two adults out in the pond. Then I heard a faint hum from inside the lodge. The wind was gusting, though not as lustily as it has the last few days, which might have made it harder to hear the noise in the lodge. Then a kit surfaced behind the lodge and then dove back into it before I could get a photo. Then a yearling or an adult beaver suddenly materialized in the channel just above the lodge and dove quickly into it. I noticed last year that one of the adults was a master at swimming up and down the channel under water. Then I saw an adult beaver settling into a mass of frogbit not far up pond. When I glanced back toward the lodge, a kit was swimming up the main channel. I knew what was going to happen next and I got out the camcorder to record it. The kit swam up the channel passing the adult who was in the frogbit to the kit’s left. Then the kit took the first channel to left and followed it until it found the new channel the adult had made through the frogbit. Then just as I thought the kit would all but climb up the adult’s back, the kit suddenly turned around and headed out the same way it came and found a channel heading farther up pond to the west. Then it stopped and upped its tail and I saw that what I thought was a kit was actually a muskrat!
Beavers often let muskrats share their lodge, until the beaver kits get rambunctious. The muskrats using the lodge usually move away in August. Now that a kit died, and only one remains, muskrats seem to have filled the void. I saw a muskrat swim back to the lodge, go over to the east side of it, pick up something in the water and dive with it back into the lodge.
I must say the muskrats add some excitement. A beaver swam back to the lodge and dove, ignoring me as usual. Then a muskrat swam over toward me from the side of the lodge, looked up at me, and fled in splashing fright. I didn’t see a kit and a muskrat together, and maybe the kit is shy of them. It was out behind the lodge, where it often goes, then dove in fright. I couldn’t tell what spooked it, but maybe a muskrat.
There are at least two muskrats and they both waded into the frog bit near the beavers’ channels and lodge. Finally, the kit surfaced with an adult beaver.
The adult fished up a stick from the water behind the lodge, and dove with it back into the lodge, and the kit followed. Meanwhile clouds moved in which made it hard to see. Using the camcorder helps and I think the last thing I saw was the kit swimming alone up the main channel, but I had been fooled before. My hunch now is that it was the bolder of the two kits that died, the one that won the shoving match and that was trying to cut small shrubs, and that went over the dam. The kit that survives is the one that was most content munching frogbit with an adult nearby. I am still thinking about this.
September 6 we were looking forward to a beautiful day, but it was cool and cloudy in the morning with sprinkles. So after lunch we went back to the island. Rain never developed and I headed off to check the beaver ponds. I prefer a cloudy day for hiking. The colors are better. I went to the Big Pond via Antler Trail and as I walked through a meadow I saw a monarch butterfly visiting the asters.
Bumble bees were in the goldenrods. As I approached the gully where the coyote remains should be, I didn’t smell anything. I expected to see them gone, but instead found the most beautiful presentation of animal remains I have ever seen.
The fur of the animal formed much of the ground that the bones were spread out on. The bones themselves were mostly picked clean. The heftier scavenging beetles had done their work and smaller mites were speckled on the bones.
The skull still had a commanding position and framed tastefully with a scapula and a thigh bone.
The teeth of this poor young coyote were sharp. It was difficult not to imagine its wide black eyes that I never saw.
Ottoleo will want me to collect these bones. He saw the coyote with me just after it died. But this patch of earth is, for the moment, too beautiful to disturb. Perhaps I’ll get them in a few weeks when no doubt cold rains will leach the beauty out of the fur. Usually coyotes worked over the bones and scatter them about. Perhaps they have more respect for one of their own. I went up to the Big Pond latrine which looked unvisited save by an animal that didn’t muddy the water
And left two small twists of black poop, perhaps a mink.
I sat briefly but the tall grasses on the dam and the shore behind the dam afford a narrow field of vision. So I stood and trained my monocular on the far reaches of the pond where I saw several ducks. A few wood ducks flew off when I came up to the dam. The lodge was bristling with vegetation, as was the closer lodge. Over the years beavers here would frequently move into and build lodges in small ponds up stream. I won’t be able to check that out until the deep winter. I crossed along the dam and didn’t see any obvious fresh activity in what I call the beaver nooks along the dam, but in the water in front of the nooks, I could see cut cattail stalks.
I didn’t see any obvious deer prints there so beavers or muskrats are more likelier suspects. This is the time of year we look for blooming closed gentians, and years ago when we bumped into an old flower lover, we learned that closed gentians could be found just north of this dam. So nose down in the damp meadow, I first saw turtleheads.
And then I saw two closed gentians under a tangle of other flowers. Of course, I took photos, but the photo I’ll share is of a closed gentian quite holding its own up along a trail through the meadow.
I’ve never seen one so exposed, at least in this meadow. I took my annual close-up, and must say that I caught it at its peak of blooming, aching violet-blue.
Two, perhaps three, ospreys greeted me as I came down to the Lost Swamp.
I’ve seen them here all summer, but I never saw them fish here. I think they bring their catch from the river and peck at it here away from all the commotion. I sat on the rock above the mossy cove latrine and there on the rib of the rock angling down to the latrine was a spread of poop that I now identify as skunk scat.
I took a close up to show that the only characteristic it had of otter scat was that it was black. All the matter was insect parts.
Then I moved closer to the southeast end of the pond and studied the activity out there. When I came up to the pond and before I was distracted by the osprey, I saw three geese lined up on the apron of the lodge. Now they were gone and I briefly studied some ducks angling through the pond. Up close ducks stutter this way and stutter that way but from a distance it seems like they swim in stately procession. The lodge itself didn’t have much vegetation on top but did have a pile of sticks at one side, and I assume beavers piled that there, though it is pretty early for them to be getting ready for winter.
I walked around the west end of the pond and then up the north shore which is the only place I can be sure beavers have been. I continue to see their trails up into the grass,
And the meager fare, willow bark in this case, that they are stripping.
I say “they”, but there may only be two beavers in this pond now and perhaps only one comes over here. That would jibe with the amount of activity I am seeing here. Back when the otters were active, a latrine on the low point along the shore just west of the dam was the last area along the shore to sprout any vegetation. Now it is a lush fern garden with a few other taller plants, a golden rod, an aster, even a pilewort.
In the longer run, otter scats make good fertilizer. The dam looks untended, but no tending is needed. There are still muskrat poops on the log perpendicular to the dam but it makes no sense to count them to see if there are more than the last time I was here.
The lodge near the dam is bristling green which suggests that beavers have not lolled up there, but otters don’t mind grasses to hide in and cushion the sticks that make up the lodge. I checked the otter/skunk latrines and saw big pat of a scat.
I still have difficulty believing that skunks would hang out here. Perhaps I am seeing possum poop. I broke open the scat just to make sure there were no fish scales, and looking out in the pond, I saw some shiners jump, proving to me that an otter here could find plenty of fish scales. I walked along the top of the slight ridge north of the Lost Swamp Pond which allowed me to see the diminishing ponds to the north
And to ponder why a beaver hasn’t come up on the ridge and cut down some of the ash trees and red oaks that are still there.
I’ve seen beavers in other ponds cut trees that size. Then under some red oaks the ground is littered with boughs cut by squirrels. Why don’t beavers bother to collect them? Before hunting season starts I will have to come out here in the evening and try to see these beavers. I went back more or less the way I came, except I walked farther below the Big Pond dam hoping to see some beaver activity there. The cutting grass is so thick that I had difficulty moving my legs in places.
No beaver could operate in that tangle. I looked for other blooms below the meadow sweet, cattails and goldenrods and as the wave of meadow vegetation flowed into valley below the dam, I saw more turtleheads and then I began noticing bur marigolds, most quite small and isolated.
Then as the ground got wetter, the marigolds were bolder.
None so big as those around the Deep Pond at our land.
September 7 We spent the night in our island home and kayaked over to South Bay in the morning, but not at dawn. I was primarily interested in seeing if there were any bryozoa since I haven’t seen any yet this year. I didn’t see any in the south cove but as we were paddling slowly out of the north cove Leslie started seeing some, just little balls hung up in the milfoil. I collected one example and hauled it home on the kayak so I could get a photo.
Usually by this time of year the bryozoa have grown into brain size globs. We’ve had a lot of wind and waves recently and perhaps all these balls, less than marble size, are the regrowth of colonies broken up by the waves.
Perhaps if we have calmer weather and some warmth these “seeds” might grow. Otherwise I was surprised to see the usual extensive spread of wild celery untouched. At the end of the north cove the water grasses seemed worked over so maybe the ducks and geese are waiting on the celery. Often at this time of year the lower parts of the cove still have extensive algae blooms and are encrusted with mats of duckweed. As I said before this seems to have been the healthiest summer for the bay and we could see small fish here and there everywhere. On shore, I didn’t see any otter signs. Beavers are eating into the big trunk of another willow farther up the north shore and also cutting several branches just above the water line. Beavers never resumed their cutting into the big willow trunk back along the north shore. Maybe it is a case of the willow being so easy to gnaw into that the beavers get carried away. They never seem to completely cut the bigger trunks. I saw one turtle. Meanwhile, up in the air there were two osprey about, including the one that likes to skim the surface of the water with its claws. Then we went to our land. I took a walk around the beaver ponds starting at the cut red oaks up on the ridge west of the Last Pool that I just discovered. No signs of beavers being back there. I saw nothing new around the Last Pool. The strong gusts of wind we keep getting haven’t toppled the poplar, and won’t until a beaver does a little more gnawing. As I sat on a rock along the east shore of Boundary Pond enjoying the sunshine, I noticed that duckweed seems to be more prevalent than the frogbit.
Earlier in the summer the frogbit ruled. My observations haven’t been close enough to suggest that the beavers’ eating the frogbit vines has helped keep it in check. As I crossed along the dam, I saw two false crane flies mating on some vegetation sprouting out from the dam. I had pretty good luck with the photo. I had never noticed the white spats along their several legs.
I was looking hard at the vegetation trying to see what the beavers were nipping, and along the east end of the dam, quite a bit had been nipped, mostly jewel weed.
Sunk in the water behind the dam, I saw a cut jewelweed.
Then on the shore just behind the dam I saw that a beaver gnawed on a small ash tree.
As I walked along the dam I thought I heard the kit whine inside the lodge. Then I was distracted when I heard the cackling of a kingfisher speeding toward me and it landed in a tree almost just above me. By the time I snapped my camera it had fled, cackling most of the way. But all was quiet for the several minutes I sat up in my chair, no cackling and no whining. I saw a large turtle on a log just off the main channel through the frogbit.
Judging from the amount of leaves floating behind the lodge, the beavers had stripped a few branches there last night.
I went back along the west shore and didn’t see anything new. Then I went back before dinner, expecting that, as usual, some of the beavers would be out early, the three that I’ve been assuming are the adult male and the two yearlings. But I sat for an hour and neither saw beavers in the pond nor heard them in the lodge. I didn’t lack for entertainment, two colorful male ducks landed in the pond and seemed most intent on finding a quiet place for the night, that is, I didn’t see them eating as the paddled through the duckweed. They were a bit larger than wood ducks and perhaps their colorful plumage had not quite filled in. I hope I see them again and can make a sure identification. Early in the day while I was splitting wood, I heard birds flitting about me and soon enough it dawned on me that they weren’t just chickadees. I tried to see one and saw the yellow and black of a warbler, probably a myrtle. Then at the beaver pond just as it was getting too dark to see, another flock a warblers came through. Before heading home I went up to check the latest work on the elm I saw a beaver gnawing a few nights ago, and was surprised to see that a fairly large maple had been cut down.
However, I didn’t see where any branches had been cut so the collection of fresh leaves behind the lodge did not come from this tree.
September 8 Of course not seeing beavers last night raises the possibility that the beavers left. So I went out this morning to see if I could see beaver work that I knew had been done last night after I left the pond. I went to the maple they just cut down up on the west ridge and it looked untouched. But I saw a half stripped stick floating behind the lodge which wasn’t there yesterday evening.
And I saw what I am pretty sure were more stripped sticks around the lodge that had been worked on last night. So the beavers are still there. I spent the rest of the morning scouting out dead trees to cut down around the Teepee Pond. While I sat by that pond a very blue blue heron flew in to do some fishing.
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