Tuesday, June 1, 2010

May 7 to 13, 2010

May 7 I resumed painting our huge house on the island picking up where I left off in the fall, and did other chores to get the house ready for the summer season. Then after 4pm I kayaked to South Bay. I saw a pair of proud geese and five goslings swimming from Goose Island to the Wellesley Island shore. The goslings puttered through the water so slowly they must have just hatched. Then as I paddled by the main dock of Thousand Island Park, I saw a pair of loons fishing in the deep water there. When one surfaced, it waited for the other to surface before diving again. Both loons stretched their beak down into the water when they surfaced, like they were getting a drink to wash down their last bite. One surfaced with a small fish in its beak. I was able to stay relatively close to them. I saw one common tern working South Bay. They prefer fishing in the morning, I think. There was one osprey about, and no herons. I was most interested in the geese. I saw two pairs who were without goslings, including the two who had resided on the south shore of the north cove. The childless couple swam close together and seemed quiet, gentle. The usually rambunctious geese acted like swans. I didn’t nose below every latrine, but saw no otter scats on the ones toward the end of the north cove.



May 8 While she was at our land yesterday, Leslie noticed some beaver work up at the Turtle Bog. This long narrow pool of water is up on a small ridge and not an obvious place where beavers would go.





When a beaver family was outgrowing the First Pond and Teepee Pond back in 2005, I saw a few birch trees cut around the bog, though I never saw a beaver in it. Last year, a beaver cut some of the willow and birch around the pool at the head of the valley. I assumed that it came all the way up from Boundary Pond. If a Boundary Pond beaver came up to the Turtle Bog this year, why didn’t it stop at the valley pool on the way? Most of the beaver birch nibblings were collected on the mossy shore where I often see Blanding’s turtles bask earlier in the spring.





I took a likely beaver route down to the Boundary Pond and saw no suggestions that a beaver recently used it. No beaver signs at the valley pool nor the smaller vernal pool under the tall trees farther down the valley. Rather than taking my usual photo of the wallow above the Last Pool, I widened the view to show how wet the whole area above the pond is getting.





But I don’t think the beavers are making a dam there. I only had time to check the big poplar and saw that they had cut into it a bit more, still a long way to gnaw to bring it down.





I walked along the path a beaver might take to get to the poplar and saw that it didn’t neglect less ambitious meals and stripped a few twigs.





Just after we got to the land, a stiff wind kicked up, which probably forced the birds to lay low.



May 9 Yesterday’s wind made the river dance and because the water level is so low parts of Granite Slate shoal were foaming. Then the cold came and when I went out on a hike with Ottoleo and Chris, I had my winter coat on, not quite cold enough for long johns. We were hoping to see the otters, though I told them I thought they were gone. We went on Antler Trail, moving a few deer along, and we heard a rose breasted grosbeak. We touched the South Bay trail and then went up on the ridge between the first and second swamps and followed that until we got a view of the Second Swamp Pond. The ridge is quite beautiful but in such a relaxing way that I didn’t even think of taking a photo. Anyway the beauty of the grasses is hard to capture and the beauty of the granite outcrops is so commonplace here. There were only a few ducks on the Second Swamp Pond so we pressed on to the Lost Swamp Pond where I could only tell the boys what I had seen. There were no otters around, and no otter scats. As I walked around the pond to the dam, I saw that a beaver had pushed mud to mark the shore.





It is nice to know that the beaver is at least worried that interloping beavers might come over the ridge from the Second Swamp Pond. It would be nice if one stayed in that pond. I saw that the goose is still sitting on her nest on the beaver lodge in the middle of the pond. I worry that her eggs are passed due. When the otters were around, I never saw goose poop in or around their latrines. Now a goose has trumped some old otter scats.





We saw a goose family down along the Upper Second Swamp Pond dam. The one gosling I saw looked quite humbled by the cold. I hope the mother was protecting some smaller ones with her wings. Chris saw another gosling with the papa goose. Must be a better way for the them to keep warm rather than standing in a shallow pond rather exposed to the cold wind. We also had a good bit of rain as the cold front moved through, and that probably inspired the Lost Swamp Pond beavers to push up more mud on their dam.





As we headed home, three osprey flew over us: first one clawing a bullhead flew west, and then two flew to us from the west, neither clutching a fish. As we walked through the woods between the Lost Swamp Pond and Big Pond we happened to pass the amazing hanging garden in the long and lone remaining limb of a long dead oak. For 20 years, probably 30 years, I’ve waited for this limb to fall. But once again, there are plants growing in the old garden nestled on the dead limb.





There were no fresh otter signs at the Big Pond dam, but the main part of the dam was warmed by several mustard flowers.





So I don’t think the otters have been back in the ponds for a week, nor have I seen otter signs around South Bay that match the scats and scratching of the otter family I have been tracking for the last few months. I’m not sure what my next move should be. I’ll probably check the latrines at Picton Island but seeing scats there doesn’t necessarily prove anything.



May 11 sunny but cold yesterday, more work on the house. Today we went to the land and it was a bit warmer but high clouds eased over during the day. I took my usual tour of the land, and then some. Going down the road to the Deep Pond, I heard crickets on both sides of the road. Then I saw a redstart high in a tree, singing its zeeeing song. Then in a tree near the pond, I saw a catbird singing quite melodiously. Not much new in the pond, perhaps it is a bit lower and the vegetation is growing up underwater. Over at the knoll, the trilliums were still mostly white on the shady side, but on the sunny side they’re turning pink and being swallowed up by the horsetails.





The phlox are beginning to bloom and up one low sunny ledge they make a brilliant presentation.





False Solomon seal are bowing down below.





And I saw something not that familiar to me, which Leslie identified as white baneberry.





Then I headed up the ridge where the shade has just about quenched the display of flowers. As usual I sat in my chair half way up the ridge above the beaver lodge. I saw some ripples in the pond but was not sure what caused it. A light wind kept playing on the water. Then at 11am I heard humming from the beaver lodge, rather constant. This is about the time when the matriarch might give birth to this year’s kits, but I don’t think I can leap to that conclusion. The humming subsided in 15 minutes. I did hear a large splash in the pond away from the lodge, but didn’t see ripples. It was probably made by a frog. Ravens were rather insistent too with their yawp, for no apparent purpose. I walked up the west shore of the pond and saw nothing new, then crossed over to the east shore and took a photo of the big poplar the beavers have been gnawing, and comparing that to the last photo I took on the 8th, it appears that a beaver had done a little more gnawing and stripping.





I crossed the narrow part of the Last Pool and walked up the west shore. The pool was muddy, beavers obviously still cruise through it, but there certainly wasn’t the usual accumulation of nibbled sticks along the shore.





I went back for lunch via Grouse Alley and was delayed by a calling bird that I thought might be a scarlet tanager, but I couldn’t get a glimpse. I think it was singing a bit too much for a tanager and was probably a smaller and duller verio. Then I saw a nice spread of white violets, Canadian violets,





And tried to get some close-ups of the blooms. One was ok.





After lunch I cut a few dead ash trees and two dead ironwoods up in the area near the bloodroots where I have been working. And then on the way back to the house I took a Grand Circle passed old haunts where I often see flowers in the late spring. Going down the ridge to the south I saw sarsparilla on a rock that use to be bare





Under that ridge there are often a variety of violets. I only saw Canadian violets today. On a ledge there was a nice presentation of columbines.





Then I tried to navigate what we call the Apple Weg, a path we cut to two old apple trees. One tree is dead and tumbled down; the other has blossoms. I kept losing our trail and was surprised to see three trails perpendicular to it, coming up toward the ridge. I may have lost my bearings, but the deer have this tangled flat of juniper, buckthorn, honeysuckle and birches wired. I managed to get around to the Turtle Bog and saw no new beaver nibbling there. Meanwhile Leslie saw three grosbeaks.




May 12 I paddled over to South Bay before lunch. Leslie paddled out along Granite Slate shoal. We thought we saw loons, but all she found were cormorants, which is interesting. Usually they don’t fish there until the late summer. Perhaps the lower water level is making that shoal a more attractive fishing ground in the spring. Over in South Bay, I saw the pair of common mergansers, and that’s about it. I paddled under the upper otter latrines and saw that the neat mound of grass topped by a scat on the rock below the latrine above the entrance to South Bay had been leveled. I also saw some whole crayfish shells in the water, and crayfish parts,





but no fresh scats that I could see either there or at the docking rock latrine. I saw a sapling floating in the water off the docking rock. I checked and saw it was cut by a beaver, a hefty cherry sapling weighted down with flowers.





I didn’t see any branches cut off. I paddled along the shore and didn’t see any sure signs of beaver, save that a big willow there might have more gnawing on it.





I’ll have to check photos from last fall.



I headed off to check the beaver ponds a little after 4pm. I took Antler Trail to the Big Pond and had to pause to take photos of the blueberry blossoms, lichens and mosses





And the gasses blooming red.





There were no new scats in the otter latrines and the green grass is growing over the old scat. The recent rains washed off scat the otters left on my perch so I sat down for a spell. Out of the wind and in the sun, a cool day turned hot. Down in the water in front of me I noticed a pile of small beaver nibbling, half of them bobbing in the water.





I am trying to wean myself off my winter boots which means using old shoes discarded because of holes. The theory is that I can still keep my feet dry since we haven’t had much rain and the beavers have tamed their dams. But as I contemplated the Big Pond dam, I saw that a strong east wind was pushing the water a little bit over the dam.





So I danced along until both socks were wet and I relaxed. The beavers push up mud here but there’s no evidence of a program to firm up the dam which they really don’t need to do anyway. The water level is quite high. I didn’t see any new otter scats around the Lost Swamp Pond either. The mossy cove latrine is greening with new grass now that the otter rolling and peeing has stopped.





I did see a bullhead part where I sit on the rock above the mossy cove latrine, right next to an old otter scat.





But this dropped from an osprey who was probably eating the fish as it perched in the tall pine above.





I sat to see if I could catch the beginning of any early evening activity by the beavers or muskrats but only the birds entertained me, and a painted turtle sunning on a log, the sun had just come out an hour ago, faced me.





Then as I walked around the west end of the pond something splashed into the water sounding much like a muskrat diving. Then as I sat next to the dam I saw what I first thought was a muskrat swimming toward the lodge by the dam. But then it dove and reappeared well up pond so quickly that I think it was a mink. Of course, the otters left this pond over a week ago, but I still formed the impression that the mink was foraging where the otters did like it was on a mop up mission after the bigger predators left -- though this mink could have well been doing this for weeks. How would I know since I am not here all the time. I studied the lodge in the pond and while I couldn’t see the goose with my naked eye and I didn’t bring binoculars, when I studied the zoom photos I took, I saw a goose-like stripe, but nothing else clearly goose like. I’ll bring binoculars next time. No signs of geese otherwise. As I said before, geese seem to be nesting more in the river and away from the beaver ponds. The beavers were not out either but I saw that the dam had more mud pushed up on it and also a honeysuckle branch was put on top of the dam.





This is the first time I’ve seen this here. However, for the last two years, the beavers at the Big Pond have put honeysuckle on the dam there, which I thought was unique behavior until the beavers did the same on the Deep Pond at our land. Is it possible that this is learned behavior and that a beaver from the Big Pond colony has moved over to mate with a beaver in the Lost Swamp Pond? Meanwhile, I heard a bird in one of the trees below the dam singing a varied song and I thought it was a catbird. Then not one but two thrashers flew by me. I headed for Meander Pond, hoping to see some beavers out there. The Second Swamp Pond was quiet and shallow as it has been for a couple years since the beavers left. I took a photo of the area where the otters had denned for a week or so in the middle of the winter, and marveled at how they could have thrived there,





And thrived they must because they certainly looked healthy in April and early May. I went via Thicket Pond’s south shore and saw that some girdling on a white oak that I noticed before and wasn’t sure if it was recent. I can see now that some was, and a beaver has expanded the girdling.





And some of the Thicket Pond’s channels were muddy and clear of vegetation, perhaps thanks to beavers.





However, I couldn’t see any beaver work anywhere else, nor was there mud pushed up along the shore. I could imagine a beaver going up and down the old trail to Meander Pond, and down at the Meander Pond canal, which was also muddy, there was a huge heave of fresh mud.





Last year when the family moved out of Shangri-la Pond, because the dam failed, and came to Meander Pond, there was a lone beaver in Thicket Pond. That beaver was not happy with their coming. I saw it splash its tail at a beaver coming up from Meander Pond. I never saw it again, and speculated that it may have been related to the beaver family and eventually joined with it. Pure speculation. I soon realized that I will have to come out later at night to see beavers here. I waited a half hour watching the peek of open water around the beaver lodge. A wood duck pair moved through with the male in full cock splendor,





And a bird kept singing in the red maples high above me, which I first thought was an oriole. Then the singing was so varied, I thought it was a thrasher again. I finally got a glimpse of an orange bottom so call it a Mozart-oriole. Not seeing beavers, I walked around the pond to see their recent works. Certainly their little dam forming the wallow below the main dam has been perfected.





I can’t resist anthropomorphizing this: last year their big dam at Shangri-la Pond failed twice forcing them to move. They want a perfect dam here, even though there is so little water behind the dam there is no chance of failure. I saw some cut green cattail stalks below the wallow. I didn’t see any new cutting of or gnawing on wood. The channels in the pond looked used, a little muddy, but no fresh mud save on that one I mentioned pointing to Thicket Pond.



May 13 I headed off in the boat on a sunny morning with a diminishing east wind. There were no ducks to pause and look at as I headed to Picton Island. I tied up at a rock below the otter latrine southwest of the point, and it didn’t looked used. The grass is high green where the otters had been scatting, and the scats there were spread out and relatively old. Certainly the otters I had been watching in the beaver ponds on Wellesley Island had not come here.





But there were some small scats on the bare granite rocks next to the grass.





The otters I had been watching for the past month didn’t favor scatting on bare rock. The pine litter along the rock looked a bit raked over but it always does. The otters I have been watching seem to pride themselves in digging deeper into the ground. There was a nice line of corydalis flourishing on the dry rock and pine litter.





Over at the point I saw some old scats but no scratched up grass. I’ll have to check my old journals but I think this year’s otter activity here is much less than usual. I motored around the point and then rowed along the shore of the quarry. I didn’t see any scats where the otters had latrined in the fall near their trail to excellent denning areas at the foot of the quarry. However, I did see bare ground at the base of a big pine tree where otters have latrined over the years.





Using the binoculars I saw what could be old scats. This pine on the Picton shore is across from a small bay that goes into a marsh on Grindstone Island.





I’ve always thought otters would use both the marsh and the Picton shore but I’ve never seen any evidence of it. Meanwhile I saw a muskrat diving and swimming around a small shoal 50 yards off shore. I motored back to Wellesley Island and docked the boat below the latrine above the entrance to South Bay. I went up and saw, as I suspected, that otters had been there since I last checked the latrine. But they did not do much scratching and left only a few scats.





It could have been just one otter. I motored down to the little island that forms the point of the peninsula jutting out into the bay. While I did see a broken goose egg, and I’m always amazed at how big they are,





I didn’t see any new otter scats, nor scratching. So I don’t know where the otters have gone. Then as I started up the motor to head home a common tern hovered over me as it stalked a fish in the water near me.





I motored off to get out of its way. What a beautiful no nonsense bird. Then as I headed out of the bay, I saw two loons fishing about where motor boats usually zoom as they go from the Narrows to the main channel of the river. No boats sped by and the loons let me get rather close.





Up close, I was impressed with the cylindrical power of these birds. There is nothing delicate about them. Sometimes I see them floating high in the water, but this birds surfaced and still stayed mostly submerged. They kept diving around me as if they thought my boat puttering about might help them catch fish, can‘t say that it did.



After lunch we went to our land. Along the path I take when I haul logs out of the woods, I saw some webworms twitching on top of a rather striking encasement of webs anchored closer to the ground than usual -- just a few inches up.





There was a motley assortment of caterpillars on top, all sizes, twitching now and then but not giving an impression of going anywhere soon.





and I took a break from hauling logs to check on what the beavers had been doing. Walking down the west shore I didn’t see much new. I sat in my chair above the lodge and didn’t hear humming from inside. I did hear humming from the swarms of mosquitoes high above me -- never heard that before in the day time. Then on the ridge behind me I heard some strange mewing sounds, half bird-like half mammal-like. I walked up to investigate and saw two blue jays and one nuthatch. I think the former were making the strange sounds. To head back to work, I walked along the ridge and saw that a beaver had just cut down an ironwood,





A little farther down a trail to the pond, I saw that beavers had cut two pine trees





And a beaver nipped off small pine branches and stripped the bark off them up on the ridge.





A bit down the ridge a small cut pine trunk was completely stripped.





I got the impression that a beaver desperately craved a taste of pine bark, which the Indians used to say the mother beaver needed when the kits were due. Then as I walked up the shore of the pond, I saw more girdled hemlocks along the east shore so I went over there to investigate and saw a striking display of girdling.





Off hand I’d say they did at least twice as much as they did last year. They also seemed to have girdled higher up the tree, and yet they didn’t neglect the exposed roots





They also gnawed the exposed roots of a big maple.





But the beauty of the debarked hemlocks outshone all their other work including the birch cut to a toothpick





While they did gnaw the hemlocks in some places, one tree clearly showed how they are primarily stripping the bark off.





So perhaps they are taking the strips into the lodge to make a comfortable bed for the pregnant matriarch or for her and her newborn kits. Perhaps they are not especially keen on hemlock but these are the nearest trees that the bark is easy to strip. They cut several elms last year and so couldn’t strip that bark this year, but before I make that claim, I should see if they girdled elms last spring when there were more of them about. It looked like they had just begun stripping one big hemlock and part of the first strip was left behind.





Of course it would be nice to see them do this. I have seen beavers strip off red oak bark and then eat what they stripped, but then in the case of red oak they also gnaw the exposed wood. The beavers aren’t neglecting their stripping and gnawing of birch trunks. The two that fell out into the channel are done to a turn, so to speak.





I plan to sit here in a couple days. Now I have a clue as to what the beavers might be up to then. Walking down to the pond, I heard and saw a grosbeak. Walking back to the house, I heard a hermit thrush. Leslie heard and saw a scarlet tanager down by the Third Pond.


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