June 28 after a busy day of chores, I finally got to the land and after dinner, I walked down to the Third Pond. As I walk into the pond from the road, I am shielded from the pond by some thick honeysuckle bushes. Between the leaves I could just see the beaver nodding its head in the water and bringing up things to eat. I got to my chair without disturbing the beaver then a few seconds later it swam below me and over to the south side of the pond.
It dove and soon emerged with a leaf on its head, which it didn’t seem to notice.
It swam to the left along the line of mostly cut willows and then climbed out of the pond, affording me a good look at its tail.
And went behind the clump of willows where I couldn’t see it.
Soon it came back out dragging a cut willow,
which it parked back down in front of the line of willows and with its back to me started pulling the trunk down and then pausing to eat leaves.
I’ve edited the video. The beaver actually spent about 10 minutes eating the willow leaves.
When it finished it swam back toward me a few feet, then looped back maybe eating some grass along the way as it ducked its head in the water several times.
Then it had its back to me again, head up, gnawing something more substantial.
Then it broke off from that treat and worked its way into the clump of nearby willows and, I thought, rather strained to get its head around another small trunk to cut down.
It dragged that out and this time faced me as it ate the leaves.
It was getting dark and I headed home.
June 29 in the morning I walked around the Third Pond and chronicled how low the water was. The south end of the pond, where the beaver has been cutting most of the willows, is soggy more than watery.
The eastern end of the little pond was almost firm ground.
I could almost walk to the channel leading to the beaver’s burrow. By raising my arm above the last clump of bushes, I got a camera shot of the remaining water there.
The channel out looked none too deep. I checked the areas where the beaver had been working recently and saw that it cut two more small branches off the large willow it cut down.
I saw more clumps of willows completely left with only stumps.
And I tried to make sense of larger clumps and couldn’t really tell what the beaver had just cut, or where it strained to cut last night, or why it strained when there appeared to be a number of willows more readily cut.
I did see what I took to be remains of one his last meals, twigs left floating willy-nilly some still with leafs.
Earlier I had noticed how neatly the beaver seemed to pile the trunks it had stripped of leaves and twigs. Now the pile did not look so neat.
I still didn’t see any evidence of willow bark being easting off the narrow sticks, and I was struck with how narrow they all appeared to be. From the southwest corner of the pond, I got a clearer view of where the burrow is, though I could not see the burrow. There appeared to be plenty of room for the beaver to relax on the shady bank.
Beavers have been in this pond before and because the pond eventually gets too low, they always left. The willows always grow back and I can see evidence of regrowth now.
I also checked the Deep Pond, and saw that what I thought might be a trail through the vegetable muck on the surface of the pond seems to have closed in, suggesting that the muskrats, who are incessant in their comings and goings and keep trails through the muck clear, had gone.
That got me worrying about the many muskrats I saw earlier in the spring. I checked the First Pond where I had seen one and saw no evidence of any being there. All the surface vegetation and pond bottom looked undisturbed.
I saw three muskrats in the Teepee Pond and worked along the thick honeysuckles on the dam side of the pond until I could get a look at the bank where I thought the muskrats were burrowing, and I saw no sure signs of them there.
Usually muskrats in that pond make there way to the nearby Valley Pool, or Peeper Pool as we sometimes call it. There was no trail from pond to pool, no muskrats trails nor signs in the pool, though where the deer waded through the tall green grasses of the pool made a striking photo.
When Leslie was up here, she saw a doe and two fawns escape into the woods. I assume that all the muskrats went down to White Swamp, nothing else to assume since I have not seen any dead muskrats around.
June 30 I was lying awake at 4:15 and then I heard the birds starting to sing so I got up, had a bite and dressed for kayaking, but, while there was no wind in my face, I could hear that the river was exercised and had not shaken off the strong winds of yesterday. So I got the running lights, bailed the boat, and raced the heron I disturbed from its roost in Goose Neck Island away from the dawning sun. I found the wind as I approached the headland, and cruising around it, chased a common tern. Ducks or other sonambulent waterfowl stayed in a row on the few shoal rocks still visible this high water year. There was plenty of light when I went through the Narrows so it was easy to see the innumerable caddisflies dancing just above the water, and a heron was alert on one of the rocks. But I had to press on to Picton, thinking time was of the essence. I wanted to see the otters. My current theory is that seagulls like to congregate where otters have been fishing in the night. I didn’t see any seagulls, but while it was just light enough for me to see well, perhaps it wasn’t light enough for seagulls to scavenge. But only one flew by, on the other side of the channel. I cruised far from the shore, and then drifted up half way closer and then rowed right along the shore. I didn’t see any otters. I didn’t see anything of note but yellow warblers until I saw a mink dance through the very latrine along the pool where I thought an otter mother was teaching her pups to swim.
I am only able to lift a blurry still from the video.
When I scanned the water off Quarry Point, I saw something black come out of the water briefly. I followed and don’t think it was an otter, probably a bass getting a morning meal. I rowed by the slope of the south shore of the point which faced the dawning sun. The reddened grasses where I’ve often seen otter scats and scent mounds were unparted.
Rowing a bit farther down the point, I saw a trail in some shorter vegetation, and some day grass scraped up.
I got out and didn’t see any otter scats. I was disappointed. I kept hearing a loon, but I never saw it. I went over to and down the Murray Island shore to keep the sun out of my eyes, I saw a heron land on a rock with a fish in its beak. It flew off, but didn’t drop the fish.
Closer to the Narrows, I saw the dancing caddisflies just above the water along the Murray shore. But many more were still dancing in the Narrows. A family of ducks just in Eel Bay looked to be feasting on them.
The still I lifted from the video hardly captures the frenetic flights of the flies
But the video is not bad.
Imagine seeing all that in half the light which is what I saw when I hurried through the Narrows before dawn. I saw a heron preening itself on a rock in the Narrows. It straightened up and gave me a hard look as I worked my camcorder.
Back at our land, after dinner, I had the pleasure of seeing the beaver and the muskrat in the Third Pond munching away rather close to each other
July1 this was another day mostly devoted to chores, but I was able to get down to the Third Pond before dinner. There was constant rippling in the pond, but not because a beaver was about. Every move a frog and tadpole made played out on the surface of the water. When the beaver didn’t appear by 6:15, I walked down to the Deep Pond. It was there, out in the lilies and bright sunshine.
I sat in my chair and let the camcorder whirr. The twitching measures my struggles with deer flies flying on the fingers gripping the camcorder.
It looked to me like the beaver ate the whole lily pad and then it swam slowly through the predominate vegetation, which I haven’t positively identified, a "pondweed" of some sort. It stopped to eat a lily right on the line the sun cut across the pond. It was facing me and I got a good view of the rhythm of it jaws and cut of its incisors,
Then it moved into the shadow and ate the viney, stringy vegetation, perhaps connected to the scaly stalks growing up out of the pond.
Then it shopped around again, dove briefly and surfaced closer to me, found a lily, ate that, ate some vines, nosed around and ate another lily.
I took some still shots with the camcorder which turned out well enough despite my twitching fly-bitten hands.
But the video tells the tale much better. This section of the pond is covered with algae scum, which the beaver didn’t seem to eat, but the scum didn’t seem to bother it at all. It swam through and dove under it, and I assume under water it could shop for lilies and vines as well, surfacing at the one it fancied.
The beaver always came closer and I got lessons on folding lily pads.
And then it ate a stalk, I assume, a lily stalk.
Meanwhile as some of the deer flies retreated as the sunset, the mosquitoes rallied, and the beaver was so close, the tall vegetation half concealing me was getting in the way of my camcorder. So I got out of my chair, which prompted the beaver to swim away a bit and give me a quick tail slap.
July 2 Before going back to the island to do chores, I walked around the Third Pond to poke into places I shied away from when the beaver was there. But I began by taking an official portrait of the pond from my chair on the west shore. First looking at the south shore where the beaver cut most of the willows it trimmed of leaves.
Here’s the same view on May 26th.
Now I can start comparing. Here is a closer shot of the willow clumps the beaver was eating.
Over the years beavers have done this before and the willows have grown back. Since the beavers are generally only here a few months the browsing pressure on the willows is not that great. I took a photo looking over toward the burrow on the east shore of the pond.
I can also show now and before photos of the dam. Here is how it looked on May 28,
And here’s how it looks today.
I’d say the water level dropped at least 2 feet. I walked around to east shore of the pond and pushed through vegetation to get a view of the burrow, assuming that the beaver was not there. There were willow sticks scattered along the channel, not as many as I expected, and the channel looked none two deep, just a few inches, clearly why the beaver left.
Then I saw why I didn’t see many willow sticks there. Peaking under the bushes hanging over the burrow, I saw that the beaver piled sticks in front of the burrow.
When this area completely dries, which shouldn’t be long, I will get a better look at this. I have trouble believing that the beaver thought of this as a permanent home. Maybe the added protection afforded by the sticks made the beaver feel more comfortable and bringing the sticks from across the pond was worth the effort. I hope to soon delve into the history of beavers in this pond, and skimming through old photos, I noticed that one beaver had a burrow covered with sticks and logs on the southwest corner of the pond. So I took a harder look at the piles there now.
And anyway I looked at it, I couldn’t see the start of a bank lodge utilizing a burrow there.
I walked down our trail from the Third Pond to the Deep Pond, and I suspect that it is the trail the beaver also used, but the only evidence I saw of that was no evidence of another trail. However, I didn’t walk down the thicket shrouded creek to its confluence with the creek coming down from the Deep Pond and then up that thickly vegetated creek. I choose my modifiers in the previous sentence to convince myself that I really don’t have to check because a beaver wouldn’t want to struggle through all that either. Standing on the slope overlooking the east end of the Deep Pond, it was easy to picture a beaver having been there the night before diving for things to eat and raising mud.
There was a muddy trail in the water over to where there might be an old deep burrow into the bank.
This end of the pond is plenty deep for a beaver. It is where I swim when I get the notion to do that, and even with the water low, it is at least 6 feet deep, and drops off quickly. The pond is machine made, dug out to supply fill to a road project nearby. However most of the burrows made into the bank were made when the water level was higher so the entrances are exposed now. There are, I am pretty sure, some deep burrows in the southeast corner of the pond. I didn’t see a muddy trail there, but I did see a trail in the grass coming up from the pond likely made by the beaver because it looked like something sat in the grass, as beavers do.
I didn’t see evidence of lily pads being eaten, but as I saw last night, the beaver likes to eat the whole pad. Looking over at the corner of the pond where it had been eating lily pads, I couldn’t see glaring evidence of that.
Certainly the lily flowers were still there. If the beaver gets a taste for the flowers, there are four blooming in front of the old bank lodge under the knoll which is a likely place for it to den.
Beavers have often spent the winter in this pond, and the last time one beaver did so, its preparations were minimal. No sense thinking of that, we have a long summer ahead of us.
July 3 for the last two years I spent most evenings sitting on the ridge overlooking the Boundary Pond waiting for and finally watching the beaver kits. With the beavers gone, I check on the pond every few days to see how low the water has dropped. Since it is dropping much more dramatically than I thought it would, I face two problems: I should compare photos of the pond now with photos I took in the past thus showing what the beavers did to that section of the valley and prepare a record of how the valley recovers, and before the valley does recover I should count and characterize all the stumps and logs, even estimate how many logs were used for the dam and lodges, etc. etc. In a word “science” calls. However, at the moment, what I call the “ecological beaver” has taken the world by storm. There is such enthusiasm for the notion that beavers promptly and permanently improve any given environment that I fear any evidence that it is not necessarily so will be ignored. The “ecological beaver” seem to flourish in more arid, less forested areas where any ponding of water should contribute to diversity, but this was a well wooded and well watered valley that, before the beavers came, seemed to be getting more diverse. Anyway, I keep asking myself do I really care how many trees the beavers cut in the few years they were here, and do I really care how many logs they used to make their lodges and dams. At the moment the answers seem to be no. I tried to do a study of the lodges and burrows in the First Pond and didn’t learn much of anything and didn’t get any memorable photos while making a wreck of the primary lodge which may in the long run deter a beaver from returning. As low as the water is in this pond now, I think the pond and valley are viable. Beavers could move in today. But when the day time mosquitoes calm down a bit more, I’ll spend some hours contemplating the situation. Today I took my usual beat-the-bugs tour. I went after 5pm, not the best time to take photos with the sun at an angle but then it was always a good time to see muskrats there. My attention still gravitates to the water remaining in the pond because I can take a photo of the channel and then imagine how the beaver widened it and made its way through it even under the ice.
Now it is easy to see how beavers have channels for travel, like the one in the photo above, and pool for eating, like the area behind the lodge shown in the photo below.
Where the channels have no water the frog bit continues to flourish.
While in the feeding pools there is carpet of woody twigs.
There is still water in the two rear entrances to the lodge,
And also water in the pool where I assume there are other entrances to the lodge.
This pool is not as deep as what the beavers dug around their lodge behind the Boundary Pond dam. I stood on the apron of the lodge when I took the photo and the maple leaves are on sproutings coming from the stump of a tree the beavers cut. This pond will recover. It has before, though not from beavers. The area was logged 20 years or so ago and because of the low water, the way vegetation grew over and some logs left behind make it is easy to see thick moss forming the soil for small shrubs.
However, the loggers were probably not as assiduous as the beavers in clearing smaller trees, and they didn’t worry about drainage. Indeed, they may have worked in the winter using sleds because I’ve never seen ruts around here, though there are some farther up the valley leading up to the road. If in the photo below the lumps of moss represent the loggers’ footprint, one can see how the beavers’ footprint compares, much less of one since many small trunks they cut had been moved down to the dam or lodge, but, as I‘ve mentioned before, I wonder if the deeper channel in the middle of the valley will dry the area out more.
I am beginning to look at old photos of the area. I might just have to take my laptop into the valley and line up perfect follow up photos. Then I got down where the trees are either dead or cut and sun now filled the valley.
I can now better see how the beavers adapted to the area. The “hut” with room enough for one beaver along the east shore, also had a smaller under water entrance.
And now I could see the short canals the beavers dug into the bank
which, I assume, made it easier to forage on that shore and on the east ridge. The dam makes a pretty and interesting photo, and quite a “footprint“. Judging from the water behind the dam, the pond doesn’t look viable, but one reason the pond behind the dam looks so low is because of the dredging the beavers did around the lodges and in the main channel.
Soon, I suspect, there will be a quiet deep pool of water surrounding an old grass covered beaver lodge and the pool surrounded by lush vegetation, though few live trees. Here is a photo taken in July 2007 before the beavers moved up here showing how a pool of water was coddled and shaded by vegetation.
The last time I was here, I thought the leak in the dam had stopped, but I could hear it running again. Judging from prints in the mud, coyotes and raccoons have walked behind the dam. I bet a raccoon has reopened the leak. It has much to gain from shallower ponds. I’ll have to take a photo at noon to show how the once well shaded lodge behind the dam is now exposed.
Two years ago, the west shore of the pond afforded me the most cover when I wanted to sneak up on the lodge and the channel in the middle of the pond and try to see the beavers. The beavers cut down all the cover and it is not hurrying to grow back.
So far there is no evidence of any trees growing back but this area had been covered by water a month ago. Blue flag iris were one of the first plants up and blooming from the muck, just individual plants. Hopefully they’ll form clumps. Today I saw a late bloomer with its flower uncharacteristically low in the plant.
The main channel is no longer two feet deep, probably just a foot deep on average. I can see a gap under the root that I saw beavers swim under many times. When the channel was this low, the beavers still managed to expand up pond.
However, the difference between now and two years ago is that now the small pool of water is surrounded by a mud flat
and then the area was lush with possibilities.
The pooled water may have been more spread out then because in two years the beavers dredged the pool. When the July 14, 2008, photo was taken there was no channel down to the lower ponds. The beavers walked up in the mud, so there may be more water in system now but the area looks drier because of the beavers' dredging. More comparisons later. Then in the evening I went down to check on the Deep Pond beaver. At first I didn't see it and then I saw that it was over on the bank, where I had seen a trail it had made, grooming itself.
Since its belly was facing me, I got a good look at its various moves. My first video clip gives an idea of the rhythm of its grooming.
It wasn't easy keeping the camcorder steady because the deer flies were feasting on my hands. So I began taking video in 20 second segments which provides an abbreviated version of some of its moves.
Here are the stills I lifted from the videos. One shows how the beaver balanced sitting straight up and reached back to get its side that I couldn't see.
When it was reaching down low, I think it was grooming the base of its tail.
This beaver had a move I've never seen a beaver use before, leaning back away from the tail it was sitting on so that the tail raised up.
Then there was its vigorous scratching with its front paw waving freely under its chin.
The beaver also groomed itself with its mouth more than I usually see beavers do, even pulling skin up to its mouth. Beavers often have another beaver to do such intimate grooming.
July 4 I went down to the Deep Pond after dinner and as I headed to my chair by the dam scanning the pond, I didn't see the beaver. Then I saw it right below me.
I slipped in my chair and the beaver seemed suspicious, but not alarmed.
The beaver even fished something out of the water and began eating.
However, the deer flies and mosquitoes were relentless and it was impossible to stay still. The beaver stopped eating and seemed to enjoy my discomfort. I fled. I went up to the Teepee Pond where I feared muskrats had left. But I only had to sit about 5 minutes, and the bugs were not bad, and I saw a muskrat eating at the far west end of the pond, then it swam up closer to me.
Then it swam deeper into the grass along the shore of the pond. Walking back down the road, I saw a hare eating road dust, and then saw a large porcupine cross the road, not to flee from me, but to forage in the tall grasses. I failed to get good video of that and, in a few minutes, the porcupine disappeared.
July 5 I sawed and split wood in the morning and in the afternoon, back on the island, had a chance to check on the Big Pond and Lost Swamp Pond. I headed out after 3pm on a hot sunny day, fortunately with a good breeze. There was not much happening in the woods so I got to the Big Pond directly. The water is lower
and where the muskrats had been swimming into the dam at four spots,
now they only seem to be swimming into one burrow.
All the leaks in the dam have dried up. But there is enough mud on both sides of the dam to show what animals have been around. Deer and raccoon prints were easy to see. In the mud below the dam where the water had been running out, I saw a mark on the mud suggestive of animal like an otter dragging a bit of its tail,
But I didn’t see any otter prints anywhere. The common terns seemed to have lost interest in the ponds and the killdeers are loudly patrolling the muddy fringes of the pond. However the exposed mud is drying quickly. The transition from pond to meadow seems to be quicker up pond. The lodge there is now obscured by the grass pinching the pond back to the old original creek.
I was able to easily walk up along the mud to the nearer lodge on the north shore. I have often done this when the ice melts in March and the water drains out of the pond before the beavers patch the holes in the dam, but I don’t recall doing it in July. I guess you could say I got revealing photos of the now higher and drier lodge, but I am seeing so many high and dry lodges that my curiosity in that regard is about sated.
There were the remains of a dead muskrat on top of the lodge, probably killed by a mink.
No otter scats that I could see on the lodge. In the exposed mud of the pond, I saw frog bit with its white flowers, and a little yellow flower blooming from what looks like a grass leaf to me.
Perhaps thanks to the dryness, the deer flies were not as bad today. The water level of the Lost Swamp Pond is also lower. Three herons who flew off when I came didn’t seem to mind that. Two were in the water and one perched on a tree. I sat above the mossy cove latrine long enough to watch a mallard family make its slow way across the pond. Then I took a photo of the drying southeast end of the pond.
My slow approach over 100 yards away still sent a heron flying off the lodge in that end of the pond. One of the marvels of last year was that the beavers raised the level of the pond so high that the lodge between the southwest shore and the dam was flooded over. Now the lodge has two or three feet showing.
As I walked around the west end of the pond, I saw a huge concourse of whirligig beetles. They seemed slower than usual, perhaps because of the larger crowd of them. I also discovered who made that mysterious hole along the south shore that seemed to get into tree roots but no roots were gnawed. Today I saw the empty turtle eggs.
I always underestimate the enterprise of turtles. As I went around the west end of the diminished pond, I took a photo of what in the winter I called the west otter latrine.
In the winter, after the otters dug a hole in the dam, the water level under the ice and snow was probably about the same as this, and the otters spent several weeks here. Of course this area wouldn’t do as a den now. To keep in the shade I angled off the north shore of the pond and followed a path in the woods down toward the almost dried out Upper Second Swamp Pond and then up to the Lost Swamp Pond dam. Water is no longer leaking through the dam, but not because of any patching by a beaver.
There seemed to be more dead stickers that I think the beaver has been collecting.
Just as in the late winter before the heavy spring rains started, I could sit on the exposed rocks below the usual north shore of the pond.
I sat for 15 minutes pondering whether the beaver was still there -- possible; if muskrats were still there -- probable; and whether otters would have any use for this pond. I have seen otter forage in shallow ponds but that was back when these valleys as a whole held much more water because while some beaver ponds were drying out, others were in fairly good shape. The traditional time for mother otters to tour these ponds with pups is still 2 or 3 weeks off. My guess is that the otters will come through. I walked along the exposed north shore. I primarily saw heron prints,
goose and duck prints, as well as plenty of goose poop, but I also saw what looked more like a beaver print
and I could see some vegetation cut and collected up on shore -- not much but the beaver remaining here doesn’t seem to eat much.
Muskrats also cut vegetation but I think they are more likely to cut, collect and carry. The beaver has a habit of cutting, nibbling, collecting and then letting it all drop. I used to think beavers were hard wired to stop what they were doing every 15 minutes and then move on to do something else. Now I think they are more philosophical. Put it this way, beavers keep their nature journal by leaving things behind and at the same time, they always collect and carry back to their lodge more than they will probably need. I took a beeline home, crossing along the Big Pond dam again no more signs of life as I hurried home. Back at the land we had a guest for dinner, and a little after 7pm gave him a tour of the gardens and then checked the Deep Pond for the beaver, but it wasn’t out. We did see a small porcupine, probably only a few months old given how bewildered it looked as it sat in the crook of an elm tree.
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