November 8 yesterday we made a very brief stop
at the land. The Deep Pond dam still leaks and I think the beaver
pushed a little more mud up on the dam.
No sign of its eating anything along the dam,
no characteristic nibbled sticks. I assume that as a newcomer, it
might be frightened. Meanwhile up in the poplar groove above the
First Pond, the large poplar that had but a few nibbles was about
to be cut down.
Since there was a chance that it could fall on
the road, I continued the beavers' cut and eased it down on the
trees along the road. I cut one large log off it, but their
favorite part, the crown, remains hung up. Meanwhile on the other
side of the pond, down at the end of the Teepee Pond, the ash
they had been cutting was down and exhibiting that curious kind
of splitting that I often see in ash.
The crown fell perfectly over the shallow end
of the pond and the beavers have been enjoying it.
Last night we had a spectacular aurora, mostly
green, filling half the sky, and the waves of energy ebbed and
flowed at the zenith and even slightly toward the southern sky.
For awhile even Orion was pulsed over. The northern sky was a
solid glow as if it were presaging a dawning sun coming up over
the arctic pole. The bright pillars of green now and then gave way
to a shaft of red. For me the mesmerizing show was right above.
There was a central cloud of energy which went through measured
transformations. Ottoleo saw a heron's head, then a wolf. And
around this relative calm circles of pulsing energy would
surround it and then retreat. The sky never seemed so musical
though the only noise came from a querulous duck on the other
side of Goose Island. In the northern sky the aurora outshone the
stars, but above and toward the south the stars shone through the
aurora. Later when some light clouds moved in from the north, the
clouds looked dark against the greenish bright sky. I turned the
camcorder on this but nothing registered.
This cold morning there was a light snow and as
I headed to Audubon the flakes grew to the size of a quarter.
This was fine company for a walk and by the time I got to the
pond I was quite warm despite the northwest wind. There were no
signs of otters along the South Bay trail nor at the docking
rock, but there were two new scats in front of the bench at
Audubon Pond.
The beavers have also been active, and as I sat
I heard one humming in the well mudded lodge.
The cache grows and sticks there have nibbled
bare. The beavers continue to cut the ash, especially along the
north shore. One large ash fell on another, that is only half
cut.
If the beavers try to cut the smaller ash, it
will be a dangerous operation because the hanging tree might fall
on the beaver as the small ash gives way. They are now cutting
the large ash they had been girdling and the wood they are
gnawing into has a pink hue.
I checked the west shore above the burrows and
bank lodge, but no sign that otters have been there. The ponds up
from Audubon Pond remain shallow. I checked the mud under the
bridge just below the Short-cut Trail dam, and saw what could
have been an otter print. The dam is well used and for that
reason an excellent place to den, but I couldn't see any otter
scats, old or new, on it. The lumbering operations continue along
the southeast spur of Meander Pond, and still no sign that the
beavers have visited the dam. The work in the this open woods is
so discreet and varied that you feel like you are strolling
through objectified pages of scholarly abstracts.
Here is a paper on beavers and white oaks,
there one on beavers and ash, and maple, and red oak. The few
birches have been spared and the large poplars must have matured,
rotted in some cases, beyond the taste of beavers, since I saw
gnawings on hophornbeam and none on the nearby poplar.
One could also study tastes in tree diameters.
I thought the beavers would be content to just girdle the white
oak, but they are starting to cut into it.
Along one path there were a few logs lined up
for hauling into the muddy pond, and up trail there were two
downed tree trunks almost completely stripped.
Meanwhile all is quiet up at nearby Thicket
Pond, still I took one photo. Just below I had seen the stump of
a freshly cut maple oozing with sap, but up by Thicket Pond, I
saw an old stump of a tree cut in the summer oozing with sap.
a good contrast between the sticky and the
dead. On the way to the beaverless East Trail Pond, I was
reminded that every winter a porcupine dens around there. It would
have been fun to see it nibbling on that hanging trunk.
As I came down onto the rock overlooking the
East Trail Pond, about twenty mallards flew off. Out of habit I
keep my eyes on the ripples left behind by their takeoffs and
their poop bombs, though I know no otters will materialize in
them. Today I was rewarded and I saw two mammals swimming toward
the lodge. Seeing two made me think otters. I trained the spyglass
on them and almost thought it was a beaver, its head seemed so
large, but the whirling tail gave it away as a muskrat. Their
behavior was curious; they moved like muskrats on a mission and
one seems to have hurried off disappearing into the cattails,
while the other slipped, I think, into the lodge. This could have
been a brief misunderstanding over territory. They better sort it
out because this pond might be iced over in the morning. There
were no otter scats to be seen which confuses me. In the past,
otters who visited one usually visited the other. I walked over
to the Second Swamp Pond knoll and as I peered down at the lodge,
a small porcupine hopped down from the base of the trunk of the
cedar in front of me and rolled down the slight hill. It soon
gathered its senses, and perhaps thanks to a comforting word from
me, went back to the cedar
and climbed to the top.
Meanwhile I noticed that the wind had picked up
and as it played across the pond I recognized the same patterns
of contending energy that I saw in the sky last night. Then all
power seemed to come from the northwest. I was about to take a
photo of the pond which looked larger and I saw a wall of white
coming. I put the camera away for the rest of the morning and
enjoyed a ripping cold snow squall. I did cross the dam below and
saw that the higher water was no result of beaver activity. Water
is flowing out the major hole. That made me wonder if the dams
above had been breached, since we have not had much rain in the
last few days. But not only could I not see, not only was the
ground soon covered with snow, but I was getting cold. So I
headed for home saving further investigation for what might be an
icy, if not snowy tomorrow.
November 9 after the squall we had no more
snow, but it did keep rather cold, and a breeze kept up
through the early night. I continued my tour of the pond at 10:30
when it had warmed up to just below freezing. The end of the
South Bay cove was iced over, but the willow lodge was next to
open water, though the lodge is rather high and dry. I took the
short cut over the ridge to Otter Hole Pond, where I paused to
ponder if any animals broke the thin ice on the pond, and
decided that none had. Up at the Second Swamp Pond most of the
area around and below the pond was iced over. There was a patch
of open water where the hole is, and no sign that an animal had
used it. There was one mallard swimming in the open water
and my passing didn't provoke a flight. I did
send a few ducks flying off the Lost Swamp Pond and then I tried
to parse the ripples for possible otters. All seemed quiet and
after a good bit of scowling I saw no fresh otter scat on the
north shore slope. A beaver had gone up and resumed gnawing the
huge maple along the path. Then up at the old rolling area, I saw
nine scats in the grass,
and two on a trail that led up to some digging.
The scats were blacker than usual and larger than usual. The
largest looked to be the compendium of more than one large meal.
Only one looked more than a few days old, and
had a millipede ducking into it.
The number and volume suggested to me that more
than a mother otter and her pup had been through here. Plus there
were no new scats where there have been a few pairs of scats now
and then. I checked the dam, and while there was still a small
leak, all seemed in good repair. I noticed that a beaver had
resume gnawing a gnarly old maple just down from the dam. I
walked over to the rock behind the beaver lodge across the dam,
and saw no signs of otters there, including on a bit of snow that
remained on the shady side of the dam. The Lost Swamp Pond was
mostly opened, but a good bit of the smaller Upper Second Swamp
Pond had frozen over. The beavers did break the ice to gnaw on
the birch, stripping one half of the bark off.
Bits of gnawed wood were on top of the snow.
This pond is quite full and not a little water is dripping over
the top. I made my soggy way to the center of the dam and only
saw the tracks of a bow hunter. No sign the otters had been
through. As I walked over to the mossy cove latrine, I noticed
that the beavers are continuing to work on the red oak -- one of
the three trunks is now hung up in the crown of a huge red oak.
Apparently I startled a red squirrel finding
nuts around the half cut bitternut hickory that blew over. It nattered at me quite pointedly, tried to abide, and then ran off
in disgust. As I approached the mossy cove latrine, I saw that
the water around it was iced over so if there was scat here, I
would know that the otters did their touring before the freeze.
And there were three large scats, looking much like the others.
They were low down on the slope. I thought the
beaver lodge way out in the upper portion of the pond looked
shaded differently and with my spyglass I determined that otters
were on it. One of the brown lumps silhouetted against the sticks
of the lodge lurched up and over another lump. In about 10
minutes they ended their nap, with one having a grand tail waving
scat on top of the lodge. Soon I saw two otters, a mother and a
pup began foraging in the pond, seemingly having great success.
The mother's tail was so large that momentarily I thought there
were three otters until I saw that she merely had her tail curled
out of the water. Though they were over 200 yards away I could
still see the fish in their mouths which means the fish must have
been pretty big. They concentrated their foraging in what I
assume is a shallow flat, and given how the tail waved up as they
dove and swam, the depth could not be much more than two feet.
They also foraged independently, and one, the pup I think,
periscoped a couple times and looked around for mother. Then one
swam toward the rocky point, across the pond from where I was
sitting, and the other followed. The pup went to the front of the
rock
and the mother went into the tall grass behind
and off to one side of the rock. The pup seemed to chew on
something, then rolled over on its back. Meanwhile, after a poop
in the grass, the mother came up on the other end of the rock,
the pup came over and they frisked together,
then the pup went back to the other end of the
rock, and soon was back into the water. If ever a pup was
prepared for separation it was this well fed specimen, but it
obviously still doted on its mother. The mother, after another
tail waving scat,
soon scooted across the rock,
dove, and soon swam up beside her pup and they
foraged together, sometimes diving simultaneously in somewhat
circular fashion and sometimes surfacing together in a parallel
line.
When they got over to the north shore, I lost
them for a few minutes, and I think one at least went into one of
the muskrat burrows over there. I picked up the pup again who
foraged at the end of the pond. Then a large wake broke from the
muskrat burrows and soon after that the mother surfaced as she
swam down to where the pup was. I was close enough to hear them
now. As usual they made no noises with their mouths, but while I
couldn't hear the diving of the pup, I could hear the diving of
the mother. I was hoping they would go up to the north shore
slope latrine, where for years I have seen otter scat and where I
have only once seen an otter scatting. But the mother swam
quickly out toward the middle of the pond, the pup followed, and
soon I heard her blowing snort. She had sensed me. As she
continued snorting they both climbed up on a log and looked at
me. I was trying to hide behind a large pine and the north wind
was in my favor, but they had seen enough and swimming together
they swam back to the north shore and, I am pretty sure,
disappeared into a muskrat burrow. It is interesting that they
didn't use the beaver lodges. At one point one foraged within
five yards of it. While the otters were foraging in the far end
of the pond, I heard some sharp hums from the beaver lodge. I was
not entirely disappointed that the otters had discovered me,
because I was freezing, especially my hands. So I hurried home
via the Big Pond, where there were a few large ducks. The lodge
which last time looked like the Rock of Gibraltar now, with
sticks stuck into it, looks like el toro.
The area behind my perch by the dam where the
otters scatted before seemed more worn down, but there were no
new scats.
November 10 another cold night but a south wind
in the morning bringing clouds and warmth. We went to the land
and checked the Deep Pond first. The fringes were iced but there
were wide areas of open water. None of the ice seemed disturbed
by a beaver -- no bubbles under the ice behind the dam. I looked
for signs that the beaver did anything. There appeared to be a
bit more mud at the gap, and then over near the low point that
goes out in the pond, I saw a cut sapling with a branch nipped
off
and two wee stripped sticks in the ice nearby.
I studied the ice outside all the burrows and nothing shouted
that a beaver had been here. Then I saw a slight trail in the bit
of snow remaining on the shore of the pond along the shaded high
slope. I followed the trail past some juniper and up to an
ironwood at the edge of the woods. I didn't see any gnawing on
the ironwood where the trail definitely ended.
But seemingly coming out of the base of the
trunk of the ironwood was a maple sapling just like the one I saw
in the pond. I looked more closely along the ground and saw the
nipped stump of another sapling. Thanks to the lightest covering
of snow, I was able to see what the beaver was up to. The trail
seemed slight, so despite its skill in moving mud, this may be a
young beaver. Up at the more active beaver pond most of the
middle of the ponds was open, ice around the fringes.
The water around the cache was open and the
water in the middle of the cache was frozen.
I saw a completely stripped log which may be
the one I freed of chicken wire. In the snow around the pond it
was difficult to tell if what appeared to be a trail was just the
snow melting in the damp or beavers had been there. I did see
some twig drag marks in the snow. Back in the poplar groves there
was no sign the beavers had been back there. I did see a nip at
the base of one of the smaller poplars but they may have been
there before. The prickly ash groves seems a little more cleared
out. At the other end of the pond, the beavers are stripping the
trunk of the ash that so conveniently fall down toward the pond.
The valley pool seemed well iced over,
so perhaps the beavers did not get into it last
night.
November 1 a cool day, and mostly cloudy, but
using the two-man saw as the sun peaked out, I soon had my jacket
off. I finished cutting up the maple trunk, a good time affording
more time for thought than seeing and hearing. I heard a
chickadee, a raven and either a tree frog or wood frog. Up on the
that stony knoll where I worked, I only saw a few stray flying
insects and a few that crawled out from under the bark as I cut.
Before I got to work, I checked the Deep Pond curious to see how
the beaver reacted to the rain we had on Saturday night. As far
as I could tell it inspired no new activity and the dam continues
to leak at the point where I attempted my major repair.
I saw no evidence that it had been on land and
only saw two wee stripped sticks along the shore of the pond but
the wind could have collected them. After work, I checked on what
the First Pond beavers have been up to. The strong wind
accompanying the rain evidently blew down the large maple they
had been cutting.
No sign the beavers have visited it since it
came down. Back in the poplar grove they seem more interested in
the willow, but I did see one poplar branch in the pipeline, to
to speak.
There also may be a fresh nip out of a large
poplar still standing, but that may be a case of not noticing it
the last time I was here. Another smaller poplar was untouched as
they cut down a hophornbeam.
I was there at 3:30 EST hoping a beaver would
come out as one did the other day at 4:30 DST, but nothing
stirred. The cache grows rather in a heap. The red squirrel did
screech at me.
November 3 yesterday we had fairly steady rain
and today low clouds broke up early and a northwest wind kicked
in resulting in a cold but beautiful day. Bow hunting started in
the part of the park I enjoy so I decided to check the areas not
open to hunting to stoke my excitement. When the muzzleloaders
come in two weeks, I'll have to confine my explorations to the
East Trail Pond, Audubon Pond and the river. The wind and cold
kept me off the river today. At the pipe near the creek into the
north cove of South Bay I saw a few mink scats.
The water level in the river is quite low. This
is a strange time of year. The November rains fill up the beaver
ponds and at the same time the river water level drops. When the
northeast wind blows, the water drops even more in the river. The
otter trails up on the New Pond knoll were carpeted with wet
leaves -- no otter scats on them. There were a dozen ducks on the
East Trail Pond who flew off when I arrived. Due to the rain the
pond has more water. Since the water drains through the hole in
the dam that the otters made last winter, the varying water level
in the pond is the same as it was during the winter. Then, when
rain or a thaw raised the level under the ice, I would anticipate
otters renewing their interest in the pond. So thinking winter, I
looked for fresh otter scats, but found none. It will be
interesting to see if their not coming is a case of their saving
food for the winter, or perhaps they won't come to this pond at
all. I walked down the East Trail and then along the north shore
of Thicket Pond. I saw no evidence of any recent forays by the
beavers, and the water in the canal was not muddy. The cut red
oak hanging over the canal has not been touched by a beaver's
tooth.
The lodge has not been prepared for the winter.
After drawing that conclusion, I turned to look at Meander Pond
and saw a dark lodge down there, too far away to tell if it was
packed with mud, but I assume so.
For years Meander Pond had two lodges, one
quite worn away and the other that they had used two years ago.
Either they have made a new lodge, or they built up the one worn away. Before inspecting the beavers' recent work on the east slope
of Meander Pond, I took a photo of the remains of their old work
just west of Thicket Pond.
The most impressive remains like this that I've
ever seen were just off what I call the Third Pond. The cut trees
there were twice as thick as those here. Despite my recent
harping on the the beavers' need for shrubby areas near the pond,
they are doing their foraging here in a park like setting,
almost like a sculpture garden. Each cut raises
its own questions. Why cut the maple that's a foot in diameter
and leave, for now, the one that is four inches in diameter, and
ditto with a pair of ashes?
Why are some tree cut in seemingly meticulous
round about fashion so that the tree stands on a point of
heartwood, while others are gouged only from one side?
And does the beavers' propensity to girdle
white oaks from ground level to as high as they can reach suggest
their recognition of the difficulty of cutting the tree down?
Given that they evidently were building up a
lodge, why didn't they concentrate only on the smaller trees that
could provide logs of a size they could use on a lodge? Why not
save the girdling of larger trees for the winter, because
certainly they are not going to survive in Meander Pond without
escaping from under the ice as soon as they can. Most of their
lumbering is on the southeast end of the pond and there is no
fresh work on the south side near the dam. And the dam, which is
in great shape, seems unvisited. However, across the pond, a bit
up the north ridge, I could see a large white oak being girdled.
The ponds below the Short-cut trail pond seemed
to have more water than usual, but I didn't see any evidence that
a beaver had visited the area. I did flush a buck and a doe, the
former pausing to get a better look at me before he ran away.
Coming down to Audubon Pond I could see sunlight glinting off the
fresh mud of the lodge,
but the beaver work on the nearby ash pales to
what the Meander Pond beavers have done. I fancy that there is
only one or two beavers here, and young ones at that. One ash has
been girdled to the ground, which I can't recall seeing before.
This is a treatment usually accorded to the
harder oaks. The big news is that in the grass before the bench
there are otter scats, two of them. They have that scaly grayish
tinge characteristic of so many scats that I've seen this year,
which can make scats look old. They did look moist, but it did
rain yesterday.
There was older scat on a log. The pond is high
so many old bank burrows and lodges could be dens but
other than a faint trail over the embankment of the pond I didn't
see any other signs of otters. There were two mergansers in the
pond and when they first popped up together, I dropped to my
knees in case they were the two otters I've been seeing so much.
There were no scats on the docking rock at South Bay. With the
water so low I could hardly dock there now. I paused to take
photos of the mud exposed at the end of the cove and there were
trails in the mud that rather looked like otters could have made
them.
I was late for lunch so I'll have to
investigate that later.
At the land I first checked the Deep Pond and
saw that the beaver had not done any more work on the dam,
affording a cold frog a warmer perch.
The dam continues to leak, but I did see little
globs of mud that looked new so I think the beaver is still
there. Then I split the maple logs I had cut. I didn't expect
this brief loud work to alarm the beavers in the pond below --
they couldn't see me and the wind was blowing toward me. I went
down to the pond around 4 pm and as I approached through the
broad pines and spindly honeysuckle, I saw a beaver in the pond.
I had camcorder ready but when I got to the pond the beaver had
disappeared. I stood waiting for about a half hour and two beavers swam from the auxiliary lodge to the main lodge, but
underwater. All the while I was hearing gnawing behind me, and
didn't think a beaver could be there because that's where I had just
been, but as the noise continued I back tracked and saw a
porcupine high in a red oak at the foot of the ridge.
When I got back to the pond, a small beaver was
out, floating parallel to the pond and obviously wondering if I
was there. Then it swam toward me in that typical weaving fashion
of a wary beaver. Then it swam back to the cache, nosed around
and took a twig too small for me to see in the water back to the
auxiliary lodge. It came out again and remained wary, but this
time as it swam closer to me another beaver came, a larger
beaver, and after a brief nose cocked swim into the far corner of
the pond, dove into the cache and took a more substantial log
back to the auxiliary pond. Meanwhile the wary beaver stayed on
guard below me. To leave, I backed out and though it could surely
hear me now, the little beaver did not splash. I also heard
humming in the main lodge and I think at least one beaver swam
under water from there into the TeePee Pond but I never saw a
beaver down there. Perhaps my splitting wood so near to the pond
prompted them to be more secretive.
November 4 In the 20s last night but exposed to
sun and wind there was no ice on the Deep Pond when we got to the
land a little after nine. The beaver had been busy, heaving mud
up where that frog had been perched, and garnished two other mud
heaves with pond grasses and stripped twigs.
It mostly stopped the leaking at this point,
but water was still running from where I had made my major
repair. The beaver had done more work there
and I soon heard that the leak came from a few
feet to the right of the repair. I think the water is leaking
into the burrow the muskrats made running along the dam. To
defeat that burrow I dug away the corrupted part of the old dam
and tried to make a new line in the sand, so to speak. It'll be
interesting to see if the beaver will do more. While it had
obviously worked at the dam, I couldn't tell where else it had
been. I saw a few more wee stripped sticks along the far shore
but they could have been blown there by the wind. No sure trails
in the grass. I took a photo giving a long view of the dam work.
On my way from the cabin to the remains of the
maple I've been working on, I noticed no new beaver work in the
grove the grouses fancy. The valley pool was muddy, and still had
some ice. So the beavers had probably been through there. But
there was fresh work right next to the pond, with a few strips
taken out of an ash heretofore untouched, and strips taken out of
an ash they had started to cut a month ago. There was nothing
fresh behind the dam, then two tall skinny maples a bit beyond
the late grove of prickly ash were just cut. I saw a large log
floating by the shore of the First Pond and investigating saw
that it was a chunk of the willow that hung over the largest pool
up the little stream from the road. They cut that a while ago,
defeating the chicken wire wrapped around it.
I fished the log out and removed the remaining
chicken wire. Going up to the knoll to do my chores, I saw that
the beavers were working on the maple that they had worked on a
while ago, and then, I think, the wind blew it down.
So they didn't ignore the windfall. On my way
back to the poplars I checked on the red oak the porcupine had
been eating. The beavers too continue to work on it, perhaps they
may cut it down, saving me the effort.
They also cut a small ironwood nearby. Back in
the poplar grove the crown of one tree that I had mostly cut down
was gone. I couldn't picture the beavers pulling it down since it
was quite extensive, then I noticed that three small pines in the
area were also cut and removed. That must have lowered the poplar
crown. Meanwhile most of the big logs are untouched. The beavers
seem eager for crowns, and the willow crown nearby that fell next
to the little stream is mostly cut and taken away. Still they had
time to cut another prickly ash or two. Of course, more birch are
down. On my way back to the cabin, I walked past the lodge and
saw more mud up on it, and saw the cache buoying up the cut pine
boughs.
Then just when I thought I had a measure of the
beavers' diet I walked over four or five ironwood trunks and
logs.
I've seen other beavers cut ironwood and then
leave most of it. These beavers take the smaller branches and
make a go at cutting logs.
November 5 blustery night with a good bit of
slashing rain, but it got warmer as the front moved through. This
morning remained blustery, cloudy, but dry and around 40 degrees.
Since this is not exactly bow hunting weather, I made a quick tour
of the Lost Swamp and Big ponds. I flushed a half dozen deer
along the TI Park trail, outside the hunting range, and then
didn't flush another until I sent two yearlings scampering from
the thickets above the Double Lodge Pond. A heron was huddled
behind the Second Swamp Pond dam and the poor thing quietly flew off
into the teeth of the gale. With my next step a pair of hooded
mergansers flew off. The pond remains at the same level which
encourages me because it remains deep enough for a beaver to swim
to it down from the upper pond. The water fowl were all in the
Lost Swamp Pond, a half dozen black ducks set off at least fifty
more further up pond, then the geese gathered beyond the lodge by
the dam flew off without even debating the matter -- save for one
that paddled around the point instead. The birds had found areas
of the pond somewhat protected from the wind but the rest of the
pond was relentlessly raked by it. Somewhat to my surprise there
was a nice large fresh otter scat on the north slope trail, but
only one.
That kept me head down along the whole north
shore and there was another scat at the old rolling area, though
not in the exact place where they had been scatting before. Also
there was not much evidence of rolling. This could be the scat of
a male otter marking territory for the winter rather than the
mother and pups who seem to scat in tandem. Here's a photo of this
otter-visited north shore from the rolling area looking west.
And here is a photo looking to the east, which
I include to show that the beavers have been keeping the dam
in repair.
However, there is still some leaking through
the dam, not as bad as before. I took a look at the Upper Second
Swamp Pond only far enough to ascertain that the beavers had
done no fresh work on the south end of the dam. I should have
checked the spillway to the creek for otter prints, but I
pictured the otter going over the north slope trail and I knew
there was a mud there. But I was wrong, that track of mud is just
covered with water. There were no fresh scats in the old latrines
along the trail. I went back to the Lost Swamp Pond to check the
mossy cove latrine and on my way around the end of the pond, I
saw a beaver trail up to the cluster of red oaks that the beavers
had started to cut last year.
The new workers seemed more interested in
girdling than cutting. The half cut bitternut hickory that blew
over a month or so ago remains untouched. Then the ugly old maple
about 10 yards up in the rocks on the south slope of the pond has
also had some fresh gnawing.
No sign of work on any of the large trees that
remain in the area. There were no signs of otters at the mossy
cove and no sign of them in the pond. On my way to the Big Pond,
I checked the grove at the edge of the thickets where the beavers
had been working and saw that they had trimmed all the crown of
the ash they cut, and cut one large log off the poplar they cut.
I was perplexed by two small ash that one would think they could
cut in one sitting without fear of being crushed by it, yet the
trees remain standing a few gnaws shy of "timber."
The trail from this work down to the Big Pond
is quite wet. I'm noticing that when beavers drag logs they seem
to make a rolypoly trail and the depressions fill with water.
Not that this will inspire to dig a canal. The
cache in front of the lodge has grown and the lodge too. It looks
like the rock of Gibraltar.
The water is brimming the dam, leaking
throughout it, and the beavers have pushed up mud and vegetation
(I should identify that stuff.)
I could see that deer had crossed the dam; not
many raccoon tracks, and then at the south end of the dam, near
my perch,
I saw what had been missing here for sometime
-- a large otter scat.
It didn't seem as fresh as the scats at the
Lost Swamp Pond. Some grass was tufted up, perhaps an otter scent
mound. While there were not many ducks on this pond, there were
flocks of other birds. In the woods at the northern fringe of the
pond I saw several nuthatches, and heard some blue jays. As I sat
on my perch, I saw a flock of black birds twisting through the
wind, and heard peeping behind me but couldn't see the birds. A
good hike considering the conditions.
