August 25 to 31, 2010

August 25 we went down to Philadelphia for two nights and before going to bed last night I walked down to the Deep Pond enjoying the light of a full moon. I stood by the dam parsing the noises and attributing all to frogs swimming or jumping in the water. Then I saw a muskrat swimming from the grasses along the west shore to the east side of the dam. Nice way to prove that there is a muskrat using the pond. This morning I walked around the active beaver ponds and first saw that a beaver had cut two small trees along Grouse Alley

And walking from that work down to the Last Pool, I saw a thin sapling stretched out on the trail.

Beavers habitually leave things behind on their trails, but at this time of year I can’t help wondering if an adult leaves such a fetchable sapling so that a kit can come up and haul it into the pond. I followed this trail to the pond and then before I turned to walk up the trail to the woods along the ridge where the beavers are cutting small maples, I saw a pile of loose, wet, woody material just up from the water. If it wasn’t so wet and dark, I would say it was the biggest beaver bolus I’ve ever seen.

But I’ve never seen beaver poop like that. The other day a sapling had been left on the new trail to the woods. It was gone today. The beavers continuing working up the woods and I got an initial impression that they had cut maple saplings and lined them up on the trail for hauling away.

But the leaves of the second one looked more faded than the leaves of the first in line.

Then I went back to the Last Pool and checked the poplars the beavers have been cutting. While we were gone it rained most of the time, and we probably got 3 inches at our land, perhaps a bit less on the island. So the wallow above the Last Pool has water in it once again, though it didn’t appear that a beaver had been in it.

As for the poplars nearby, a beaver had visited. The big one they just started to cut now has been cut all the way around.

However, the smaller poplar next to it has been in that state for almost a year, and is still standing.

But this new enthusiasm seems to be cut a bit more and as beaver projects go seems to have momentum. The Last Pool doubled in size with the rain, regaining all the water it had lost during this hitherto dry August. The expanse seemed to invite a beaver to swim up and girdle another elm not far from the one they already girdled.

When I noted that the curly birch just cut was leaning on a birch that beavers don’t cut, I was too eager to stymy the beavers. The curly birch is leaning on a gray birch that the beavers had begun to cut last year.

And not far away, there is a larger gray birch that beavers cut down and stripped last year. So stay tuned. They may get their curly birch if a beaver is brave enough to risk cutting a tree with another leaning on it. (I’ve only tried that once, and got away with it.) I headed down to Boundary Pond and along the channel to it, I saw where a beaver had left a pile of leafy branches.

This is the second indication I’ve seen that this is a popular place for beavers to eat, and a good place to view from the west ridge. But I was on the east shore. Of course, Boundary Pond had more water too, and it looked like swimming around areas that had been dry for a few weeks inspired a beaver to taste some hemlock trunks once again surrounded by or nearer to the water.

Of course, of late all the cutting along on this east side of the pond is occurring up on the ridge. So up I went, but today I didn’t see any fresh cutting or gnawing. However at the deep end of the gully where the beavers had been working, there was a pool of water.

I don’t have to wait until the spring to see how beautiful this slice of Eden can be. Then I headed down the ridge and as usual of late, half way down I sat on a rock to think about what I had seen or, in this case, what I hadn’t seen. Then I looked down and saw an adult beaver on the east shore of the pond, right below me, looking up at me.

Earlier in the summer I saw a beaver sitting here on several mornings, once I saw two beavers. And the beavers fashioned a bit of a nest surrounded with sticks. This beaver wasn’t quite in the hole. Except for the first time I scared the beavers here, almost stepping on them, the beavers here were always very placid, and so too was this one. It seemed half a sleep, and sloth-like finally turned to face the pond and settle into a sphinx-like pose.

I sat for about 15 minutes wondering if I should go back up the ridge. Before I decided, it eased itself into the pond, swam out several yards and then turned as if it was watching me.

As I mentioned before, back in 1999 I wrote a simple poem about a beaver staring up at me during an August afternoon looking like a golden log. Since this beaver’s fur was dry, with a reddish tint and here and there, a blond color, it too looked like a golden log. But I had to move on. I decided to angle down the ridge, trying not to get any closer to the beaver. But as soon as I started to move, it dove. I’m not sure but I assume it swam back to the lodge under water.

Back on the island, I headed out to check on the dead coyote pup, and really didn’t know what to expect. Usually, I see a deer killed by coyotes, and they leave a carcass ripped apart so other animals, especially the crows and chickadees can have some easy pickings. But immediately after the pup died, no coyote came along to rip it apart. I could smell the carcass before I could see it. When I did see it, two vultures flew off it. I managed to get a photo of them flying away.

The carcass was largely intact but peppered with flies on the fur.

It looked like birds had managed to peck into flesh along the snout.

Due to the smell I didn’t make any close investigation. As I walked away, I saw that one of the vultures was sitting on a nearby tree waiting for me to leave.

A few days ago the water behind the south end of the Big Pond dam was muddy and I guessed that a muskrat was using the burrow there. If so, it didn’t come back. The water was clear.

A deer wading in to eat vegetation in the water probably made the water muddy. The water behind the main part of the dam was alive with whirligig beetles, and in the distance I saw ducks. Otherwise two thirds of the pond surface has emerging vegetation.

The beaver nooks along the dam looked unused. So once again, as seems to happen every year for the last five years, I can worry about whether beavers are still in the pond. Of course, I checked the otter latrine along the dam and saw no fresh signs of otters, nor skunks. And the mossy cove latrine at the Lost Swamp Pond seemed to have no recent animal visitors. I sat on the rock above it and waited for the wood ducks to fly up pond and then fly off the pond. One set of ripples remained and with the binoculars I could see a muskrat eating and sometimes twitching its tail in the northeast section of the pond. The beaver lodge up in the southeast section of the pond looks so eccentric with one green shrub on top that I think beavers are there, keeping things trim after their fashion.

All the ripples in that section of the pond were from foraging ducks. That section of the pond is almost completely vegetated. The rest of the pond is mostly open. Walking around the west end of the pond, I sent several frogs jumping into the pond. The last few years this pond seemed to have fewer frogs, so I enjoyed seeing those leaps and splashes. There seems to be less pilewort on shore, but enough to get my annual photo of pilewort flowers going to seed before they even bloom.

Walking along the north slope I saw several trails coming up from the pond through the grass.

And one trail led to a little pile of beaver nibbled twigs.

Looking up the slope, it certainly looked like animals had been browsing but I couldn’t tell what they had been eating.

I really should make a study of this. But looking for drama, I am impatient with science. There was nothing new at the dam, not even evidence of a beaver doing anything. I was close enough now to get a photo of the muskrat still nibbling away.

When I stepped over to the dam, I flushed two deer. One leapt down to the Upper Second Swamp Pond dam and then paused to look back at me, and paused again before being swallowed in the vegetation along and below that dam. The other deer headed up into the meadow above that now rather small pond. I went down to cross along the dam and pond had that stagnant water film on it.

I could see that the pond had been lower and the mud along the shore had been baked until it cracked.

I was heading that way to check on the Third Ponds and see if beavers were there. None had been to the series of ponds coming up from the East Trail Pond for years, but I still check. First I checked the last in a series of ponds that drains to the east, eventually curving around to Eel Bay. Beavers had been in the upper ponds of that development three or four years ago, but today those upper ponds were wet meadows.

The last of the ponds draining to the west toward South Bay was a patch work of pools that beavers dredged years ago, all covered with bright green duck weed.

The pond just up from the East Trail Pond almost looked tended, but it was a rather small pool that probably just filled with water during the recent rains and the duckweed had not had time to cover it.

I angled over to where I had last seen the beavers in this neck of the island, in what I call the Upper East Trail Pool. The last time I was here the water had almost dried up. Thanks to the rains, the pool was full, but the water was not muddy, the half gnawed red maples were still standing, and I saw no evidence that a beaver had been there recently.

I did see some turtlehead flowers along the shore but was too lazy to go down and get a good photo of them. Then I went on the East Trail up and along the ridge between the upper East Trail Pond and Shangri-la Pond. I glanced down at the former several times and saw no beaver activity as various little pools and channel swallowed by buttonbushes and ferns came into view. Then I thought I heard beaver gnawing, so I went down and sat on a rock affording a better view of the pond.

I kept hearing gnawing coming from three different areas: near the opposite shore and to the left and right of me. For all the gnawing I was hearing, I couldn’t see beavers, until one appeared briefly before heading into the tall grasses west of the pond. Then I kept studying the shrubs just below me to the east

And I finally spotted the gnawing beaver.

Then it swam back under the buttonbushes and started cutting a branch on another small shrub, that I couldn’t identify. I took a video which to everyone else will seem rather strange and boring, but which to me represents another triumph of these beavers’ survival skills.

I almost felt like cheering but, of course, kept quiet and the beaver brought a twig back to gnaw at the same spot I saw it before. I went back to the trail, keeping an eye out for a beaver in the woods above the East Trail Pond. Where will these beavers spend the winter? Perhaps they’ll simply move back to Thicket or Meander Pond where they have spent several winters. I walked down the north shore of Thicket Pond and when I curled around the west end of the pond to check that latrine I discovered the other day, I saw a fawn in the tall grass on the other side of the dam looking at me.

I set the camera on video and moved toward the fawn. It turned and leapt away, and then a doe bounded out of the tall grass and followed it.

A productive hike. I really like those beavers where they are. The Third ponds are deep in the hunting zone, while these ponds aren‘t.

August 27 Yesterday we took Ottoleo back to Montreal, and today I got back in gear with my sawing and splitting firewood. Then in the evening I went to see what the Boundary Pond beavers were up to. As I came down the slope to my chair above the lodge, I saw an adult beaver a bit below me to the left eating the frogbit in the pond.

I didn’t risk trying to sit down, and am glad I didn’t alarm it, as it shortly swam up on shore and began browsing the small shrubs and longer vines and grasses there.

Here was unaccountable behavior in my book. Growing so near the lodge these plants could not be unfamiliar to the beaver, but it was rather gardening over them with its nose and frequently took a bite.

Then it did something I’ve never seen a beaver do. It pulled a plant out by the roots,

but was not exactly weeding the garden. It took the plant to the water and ate it all down to the dirt encrusted roots.

Then it swam back into the lodge. I finally got to sit down in my chair and could take in how different the pond looked thanks to the 3 inches of rain we had. The frogbit seemed flooded so the beaver channels through it were not so striking.

There was a kit humming in the lodge and then a yearling came out and went directly up pond, but the kit didn’t follow. Soon enough the kit came out, and swam behind the lodge without any particular plan in mind, as far as I could tell.

and then dove back into the lodge by the west side entrance. Then a beaver came out of the east entrance and was soon up on the dam nipping at the jewel weed growing there.

It bit off a big sprig of it and brought it into the water behind the dam and ate some of it, and dove. Then, I think, it came right back out and swam slowly up pond. Then a kit came out again. I was getting the impression that all the other beavers had gone up pond and this kit was left behind. I wondered if it might be a third kit, the runt of the litter. Last year a third kit came out rather late. But this kit showed some rather precocious behavior for a runt. It swam to the dam, climbed up on the dam and started nibbling the leaves on what looked like a jewel weed.

Had the adult brought some into the lodge inspiring the kit to check it out for itself? But, it didn't seem to care much for the jewel weed and it swam up one of those flooded frogbit channels and started munching with tail cocked, which you can just see in the photo below.

Then I noticed a goose swimming in the main channel of the pond. I’ve never seen a goose in this valley.

It did look a bit out of place. I looked for a beaver swimming down the channel but saw none and the goose slowly swam up it and I lost sight of it. Even though there was still a good bit of light in the valley, I headed up pond convinced that I might get a complete census of the beavers here. I saw one adult beaver eating grasses along the west shore, not that far up pond.

And that was it. I saw some new girdling along the west shore, a medium sized maple half way up the ridge,

And an big ash tree right next to the channel.

But no more beavers.

August 28 I headed up the road to the Teepee Pond to get some wood split before the heat of a sunny and cloudless day built up. The woods along the road seemed quite alive. I heard a deer thunder deeper into the woods and three grouse fly off from a tree one after the other. Then when I got up to the Teepee Pond I saw the back of something dead floating in the water.

I first thought of a goose, perhaps because I saw one out of place in Boundary Pond the other night. But I soon saw that it was a mammal.

I fished it out and saw a dead and bloated adult beaver.

I looked hard at the tail and teeth. I once saw a beaver I knew was being ostracized by other beavers and its tail had been roughed up. But this tail looked whole.

Beavers with bad teeth usually die, but these teeth looked correct enough considering that rigor mortis had set in.

I also saw a turtle along the north shore of the pond.

Since it didn’t move as I fussed with the beaver carcass, I worried that it was dead too, and I moved close enough to watch the painted turtle bail back into the water. Seeing the dead beaver was upsetting and I split some wood while I thought of what I would do with the carcass. I faulted myself for not paying closer attention to this pond, and in the spirit of keeping an eye on things, I walked around the ponds here and up to the turtle bog. The vernal pool above the First Pond had water in it, about as much as it usually holds.

I couldn’t see any frogs taking advantage, much less a turtle. The Bunny Bog and Turtle Bog both had plenty of water but the latter especially was still choked with grass. I did see several frogs jump into it. The valley pool or peeper pond, as we call it in the spring, still has water too. Sometimes we see Blanding’s turtle active in these ponds at this time of year, but none were about today. I returned to the Teepee Pond and walked around looking for beaver activity. I didn’t see any, but the shore of the pond is choked with vegetation,

and it would be difficult for me to tell if a dying beaver had found a last supper in or around the pond. I saw two holes in the mud around the pond but not so close to the pond that crayfish might have made them.

One hole looked to have tracks beside it, though I couldn’t make them out.

As usual we went home in the middle of the day and when we came back, flies were all over the hump of the carcass above water and white matter was oozing out of areas of the skin.

I decided to wrap chicken wire around the beaver carcass and sink it in the pond with a rock.

I hope the carcass will completely sink after some of the gases bloating the body work themselves out. That would save me from a stench while I worked around the pond, and I was curious to see how quickly a carcass would be picked apart in a pond. I found a rather clean carcass in the Deep Pond last year and my theory that a bobcat killed it depended on crayfish, turtles and bullheads picking bones clean in a matter of a week or two. Of course, this carcass has not been ripped apart by a predator. Before I put it back in the pond, I took a closer look to see if I could learn anything more about it. I saw that it had two teats,

and am not sure if that just means it was a female or whether it proves it had borne and weaned kits. I saw that some flesh just above one the back legs were exposed, perhaps arising from a fight with another beaver or with a predator.

So? The most depressing thought is that this is the mother of the Boundary Pond colony, but I’ve seen no evidence of any of the beavers there coming up here, several hundred yards away. A more pleasant thought is that this is the mother of the family that left this pond in September 2005. Those beavers had been there four years. So this old matriarch came back up from White Swamp to die here where, dare we say, she spent the happiest years of her life! Before dinner I made a brief check of the Last Pool to see if the cut poplar had fallen. No. I took a close look at that cut,

and at the stump of the big poplar that the beavers cut down last year.

It was easy to say that the beavers had more cutting to do before the tree had a chance to fall, but as I held the trunk I could feel it swaying with the wind. I wouldn’t put my head in that cut and do more gnawing. We had an early dinner and Leslie joined me to check on the beavers. Drawing conclusions from what I saw and didn’t see last night, I had a hunch that the beavers were avoiding the Last Pool where the large poplar had been cut enough for a strong wind to blow it over. So tonight I was looking for two things: two adult beavers swimming about so I could rule out that depressing thought about where the dead beaver came from, and all the beavers shying away from the upper end of the pond. As we came down the slope to the chair I usually sit on, an adult beaver and a kit were right below us next to each other with the kit on land and the adult in the pond. That was a promising start. The adult pulled away from the shore back into the pond and the kit jumped back into the pond when I made a misstep. Then I thought I saw a second adult come out of the lodge and head up pond but only so far as one of the frogbit channels in Boundary Pond far below what I theorized was now a no go zone for beavers.

Then we saw two beavers, adult and yearling, lurking right below us.

After I got some video, I let Leslie sit in the chair and wait for the kits to come out of the lodge. We could hear one whining. I headed up the ridge to where the Last Pool starts so I could see if any beaver came up that far. For a half hour my theory did well. Just below where I was sitting, I saw that a beaver had started cutting into the maple they had recently girdled.

Here was a good pastime for a beaver that couldn’t go any farther up pond. A beaver splashed along the east shore of the pond reminding me of a month or so ago when an adult beaver was trying to keep yearlings away from the little hut just big enough for one adult. So tonight I pictured an adult once again standing guard. Then an adult beaver materialized in the frogbit just down pond from me, again according with my theory. Then just as it was getting too dark to see, a beaver swam up the channel in front of me. It looked like a yearling. Of course, if it was an adult going up to check the big poplar, I could still cling to my theory, but then a kit swam up the channel. Before I left I heard a barred owl calling.

August 29 Leslie spotted a beautiful caterpillar on a stone in front of our house on our land. She thinks it’s a luna moth caterpillar except it is orange rather than green.

Once again we are in a hot spell, with it getting more hot and humid everyday. I split wood until 9 am and then headed to the woods to start sawing trees I cut down in the spring. I found that the humidity had saturated the woods but I kept at it for an hour and then went down to swim in the Deep Pond. I expected to see signs of the muskrat I saw the other night, but other than some possible gnawing on the far side of the pond I didn’t see anything. The swim was refreshing and no flies or mosquitoes attacked. On our way home we saw two large white birds in a pond beside Route 26.

They were far away, and not with blue herons, but near a flock of geese. When we came back to our land, I went out to see the beavers after dinner, no longer focusing on their possibly shying away from the big poplar that might fall, and now back investigating the possibility that there are three kits, not just the two I’ve been seeing. Two beavers came out of the lodge and went up pond and once again there seemed to be only one kit in and around the lodge. So I wait for another kit or two to come back down to the lodge. I did here a tail slap up pond which I have been interpreting, with little evidence, as an adult warding off a yearling or kit. Then for an instant I thought I saw two kits eating frog bit just off the main channel, but when I focused on them and saw their jaws going a mile-a-minute, I knew they were muskrats and I soon saw their tails curling up.

They kept getting closer and when they were almost nose to nose, it was like a trap sprung and one muskrat sped away. Then I saw an adult beaver swimming slowly down the channel. I braced my camcorder for a beaver-muskrat encounter, but instead the muskrat fled and a beaver kit swam out to meet the adult and it seemed to want to turn back the calendar, swimming up to its back, all but hitching a ride.

The adult dove and swam so far under water that the kit had to surface for a breath of air before catching up to the adult near the lodge. Now the kit kept a respectful distance. The adult swam slowly to the dam and climbed up on it and munched some leaves on a shrub. This adult was quite slow and not like the adult that more nervously ate the jewel weed and other plants. So I still think the female adult I found dead in the Teepee Pond was not from this family. The adult went over the dam, still munching leaves,

and the kit slowly followed

and soon enough got side by side with the adult. Not much humming from the kit. The adult came back into the pond and I didn’t see the kit follow. Then the adult swam over to the foot of the trail up the west ridge, raised itself and sniffed the air, and apparently didn’t smell or mind me. It slowly climbed up the ridge. Earlier in the evening a small rotten tree trunk fell across the trail. The beaver moved it aside. Then it went up to an elm that had fallen, after being half cut by a beaver, a couple days ago. It reached up and started eating leaves. Meanwhile it was getting quite dark, but I found that with the night shot function on the camcorder I could see the beaver. Then I heard something crawling down the ridge, taking my trail down to my chair. Thanks to night shot, I could see that it was a large porcupine. It would have bumped into me if I had not hissed it away.

Can’t you see I’m watching a beaver. But not for long. It was getting very dark. Then I smelled a skunk, the smell came down from the ridge and I decided I best walk back along the shore of the pond. I heard many splashes as I picked my way through the stumps of countless small trees cut by the beavers. Most were made by frogs, but two sounded like beaver splashes, including one that could have been from a kit, encouraging me to believe that at least one kit had been up pond while I was watching the other below the dam. But no signs of a third kit.

August 30 I made a point of walking around the Last Pool and Boundary Pond in the late morning, not to see a beaver but to take a close look at what they’ve been up to. It does seem like they are doing less foraging out from the Last Pool. No fresh work in Grouse Alley, the wallow above the Last Pool is not muddy, and no new gnawing on the poplar they have almost cut down, nor on the elms and birches they had been gnawing. I went up the ridge east of Boundary Pond and saw no new activity up there. I did see a couple of mud heaves behind the dam,

And I took a photo showing the jewelweeds on the dam so I can keep better track of the beavers eating that.

Down at the west end of the dam, where I saw the kit nibbling leaves, I did see some beaver stalks. But in these bushy plants, it’s not easy to see what a beaver might have cut off some leaves.

As usual, I sat up in my chair and heard nothing from inside the lodge for several minutes. Then, as usual, I heard a kit whine. Then I went up the ridge to see what the beaver had been eating last night. It cut a big log off the elm and brought it a few yards down the ridge.

There is still more to cut, and plenty of branches. Evidently last night it trimmed the branches back far enough to cut that log and bring it closer to the lodge, but it didn’t take it all the way down the ridge.

But it is always risky to try to reconstruct what a beaver did based on what it left behind. I went farther up the ridge and saw that a beaver took some bites out of the bottom of a red oak and elm trunks. Again, that porcupine could have done that too, but these beavers are inveterate tasters and I only see this in their range of activity. If a porcupine was prone to taste, it should bite on trunks throughout the woods. Plus porcupine tasting is usually more discreet. I walked back down to the pond but saw no more new beaver work. I took a better photo of the ash they have been girdling,

This quite lively tree may soon be fodder for firewood. Nearby I noticed girdling on an elm, which has probably been there a while and I didn’t notice that work during their recent spate of girdling.

That tree next to it, an kind of ash less desirable for firewood, has not been girdled by the beavers because it is dead. While the wallow and Last Pool did not look muddy, the channel up the middle of the Last Pool is muddy and I took a photo so I can judge better if the beavers are dredging again, though the pond looks plenty deep.

So I thought I had a succinct picture of the beavers drawing back on their foraging, and I was thinking better of my idea that they were avoiding areas near the big poplar that might fall. Then when I went into the area where they have been cutting maple saplings, I saw a stump and a maple leaning into neighboring trees.

The leaves of the cut tree were withered which suggest it wasn’t cut last night, but what got me is that I didn’t notice this photogenic arrangement before, so either I was dull the last few times I came back here (I’ve been checking it about everyday) or a beaver was back here rearranging things. I went to my seat above the beaver lodge early in the evening hoping that I could see all the beavers as they went out. This family, of late, seems eager to start their evening’s work. Recently, I’ve been seeing a beaver out in the pond when I got to my chair, but not tonight. I seemed to have timed it perfectly because a kit came out behind the lodge. Then an adult came out of the entrance below, but went right back in again. Was it checking on me? Then it came right back out and went right back in again. Then I noticed something that cast a pall on the evening. The ripples from the beaver coming out and in kept what looked like a ball of fur bobbing and moving in the water away from the lodge.

It looked exactly like the hump of the carcass of the adult beaver that I saw in the Teepee Pond. Meanwhile the kit was fiddling with logs behind the lodge

and when it bent its body to dive in the water, I could see that the portion of it above the water was same size and shape as the lifeless lump in the water. I feared that one of the kits had died. But I must say the kit I saw didn’t seem to be in mourning as it went through all the usual kittish routines

But alone. Then the adult beaver came out again beside the lodge, this time pushing a stripped log. It didn’t pay any attention to the dead thing in the water. Of course, I studied that more closely through the camcorder’s zoom lens, which only confirmed that it was fur, not a turtle shell. Then two yearlings came out of the lodge one after the other and swam up pond. Then an adult came out and swam up pond. The kit went back into the lodge. Then I noticed something small coming out the east entrance of the lodge, difficult for me to see. Then I saw one muskrat hurry over the dam. Last night I saw two muskrats, could the dead hump be a muskrat? I slid down the ridge and positioned myself behind a big tree on the edge of the pond. I thought of going out into the pond to see what it was, but I wasn’t dressed for that, and I didn’t think the carcass was going anywhere. Humped up like that it was probably bloated and of no interest to any scavenger that might notice it. From my low vantage point I got a different angle on the kit when it came back out. It never ventured around the lodge, as kits usually did, so didn’t get near the carcass. And then the two yearlings, one after another, came back to the lodge. That set the kit, yes, I strained to hear two but only heard one, to whining. I soon heard gnawing, along with the whining. I discovered last year that beavers can gnaw and whine at the same time, so the kit could have been getting fed. If one of the kits had died, maybe these yearlings were paying closer attention to the surviving kit, which didn’t stop its plaintive whining. Anyway none of the beavers in the lodge seemed disposed to come out and the adult didn’t return. Plus I had to pee. So I went home.

August 31 I didn’t go out first thing to check the carcass in Boundary Pond. This promised to be an even hotter day and the promise came true, so I wisely split wood while I had a chance to survive such labor in such heat. Then I put on short pants, old shoes, no socks and headed to Boundary Pond. Wading out to the carcass I was quite surprised when the water came up to a few inches above my crotch. These beavers have fashioned an amazingly deep pond. I borrowed a straight log from the dam and with that pulled up the tail of the carcass and saw that it was a beaver kit. I had also brought a plastic bag. Without any ado, I put the carcass in the bag and hauled it out of the water. It wasn’t heavy. Having to deal with two dead beavers in one week, especially in this season of plenty, did not please me. I could see that the parts of the kits that had been dangling underwater were chewed up. But I postponed my postmortem and sat in my chair to dry out a bit. I sat long enough to hear a kit softly whining in the lodge. I also checked the work the beaver had done up on the ridge behind me and saw nothing new. I took the carcass to a sunny spot well up the ridge, more convenient to our house than the beavers’ lodge. I figured I was doing the beavers a service and though it might be interesting to see how the surviving beavers dealt with the decomposing corpse, I was in no mood for that. I dumped the body unceremoniously on the ground and took the usual photos.

Factoring in the bloating due to the heat, I was amazed at how small the kit was. The fur on the back legs had been eaten, and there was a large cut when one front leg met the body.

That could just be where a snapping turtle got a good bite after the kit died, but if there was predation by a snapper or another animal, a muskrat might be a suspect too, that is likely where the attack was made. But I didn’t linger over it. The carcass stank and flies were quickly on it. Then I took a photo of the wee tail, and stripped back legs, even the feet seemed eaten,

And pondered what to do with it. That morning I saw that things were not going well with the adult beaver I tried to sink in Teepee Pond so turtles and crayfish could have an easy go at it. Despite weighing it down even more with an ironwood log on its head, the bloating beaver had surfaced again. The head wrapped in chicken wire seeming to come up for a gasp of air. So I decided to kill two dead beavers at once. I went to Teepee Pond and dug a hole on shore near the beaver. I hauled it out, and buried it and the rock weighing it down, as well as the chicken wire. Then I dug a much small hole for the kit. Before burying it, I cut off its head so I could surely preserve the skull, and also the tail, and I buried the poor thing, right next to a mother beaver which I hope is not its mother. The most worrisome cause of death is disease. I am not equipped nor educated enough to figure that out, but if there is an epidemic, I’ll soon see more dead beavers. It is conceivable that the kit died in the lodge and was hauled out by the adult. In this heat the body could decompose quickly. Ottoleo, Marlee and I saw two kits on August 20. Between then and now, I’ve been toying with the idea that there are three kits, which is to say, I was thinking that the one kit always near the lodge was a runt while the two kits I had been seeing for a few weeks were bold enough to forage up pond. So the kit could have been dead for several days. But the carcass certainly wasn’t in the pond before last night. I would have noticed that. When I got back to the island, I cleaned as much of the tiny skull as I could. I should have taken photos of all the little organs associated with a kit’s head, but the smell impels one to make a quick job of it. There were a few chewed leaves in its gullet that looked quite fresh which argues for a recent death. The teeth seemed rather small and tentative, as I suppose they are. I’ll have to read up on that. The only feature that didn’t strike me as kittish as I worked the skull back in forth with my hands, knife and scissors, was the muscles of its tiny jaws, and the roots of its whisker hairs. I didn’t keep the tail, because even separated from the carcass it smelled badly. The muscles controlling that tiny appendage are now buried but I am sure if I had them in hand I would be impressed with their size. As luck would have it, we invited a young opera singer over for dinner at our house on the island so I didn’t have a chance to study the beavers the night after this grim discovery. I took it as good luck, because tomorrow I could wake up before dawn, and kayak out on the warm river, steer a course toward Picton and look for otters, and if I should see them! Just the tonic I need.