April 2 to 8, 2008

April 2 yesterday the temperature climbed to 50 degrees and we had showers, then sun. There was a great thaw. Today I set out to reap the fruits of it, but it took some thinking because on the flats the snow was still deep. I decided
to try Antler Trail because I was sure the slope facing the sun and the granite plateau would be snow free, and I was right. But there was still snow in the woods. It was cold last night and about 30 degrees when I headed off. So the snow in the shade could support me, until it couldn't, then I went down into snow almost up to my knees. Plus unable predict if I would stand or plunge, I had to go slowly. The north slope was an entirely different story. There I wanted soft, not frozen snow. I got enough of the latter that the safest course was to slide down the slope on my butt. Almost down to the creek I was distracted from this travail by a spread of what looked like deer hair on the snow.

There was also some coyote scat on the snow just up from it.

I looked around for a carcass and saw none. Then when I looked closely at the hair I was surprised to see some reddish hairs, the deer's summer coat that I don't expect to see for a while.

The South Bay trail was passable because the raccoon trappers had been through on an ATV. Of course that obscured any tracks, but off the trail I didn't see any tracks. I haven't been here for quite some time and really couldn't tell if the porcupine had girdled more of the red oak beside the creek, or the girdle looked wider because the snow had melted.

Of course the creek was a rush of water,

but it flowed into a South Bay still locked in ice save along the north shore.

The hiking trail along the north shore was completely free of snow, so I could study the shore as I walked along. I saw no hints of any activity other than melting, save for one possible deposit of goose or duck poop. Then at the
docking rock, a traditional otter latrine, I saw a scat on the rock behind some grass raked up from the turf.

I was unable to get a good photo showing the possible scent mound.

The scat looked pretty old, but it did freeze last night.

I know this wasn't there early in the winter. This was encouraging. I went out to check the rocks at the mouth of the creek coming down from Audubon Pond, that otters sometimes use as a latrine, especially in the spring, but no signs of otters being there. I did see some shad bush trees that looked
recently cut.

Then as I continued along the trail I stopped over an owl pellet that had what almost looked like steel wool wrapped around some bones.

Then a bit farther on I saw brown and white feathers all about, no carcass and I couldn't think of what bird was victimized. Almost looked like owl feathers, which I would assume would be the predator not the prey.

I didn't see any more beaver work even on the slope above the willow the beavers gnawed on late into the fall. I sat down there because it afforded a good view of the otter latrine above South Bay.

I thought I could see otter scent mounds made with leaves but everything is scraping leaves this time of year, even the wind. So I bent down to look for scats, and I saw them.

Nothing large, nothing fresh but they weren't there the last time I was here. And I saw two piles of leaves scraped just as an otter would do

and then below a rock I saw more piles of leaves, scraping in the black dirt with scratches like otter claws, and some dry scats below all that.

Otters have been here, and relatively recently, which is an encouraging sign. Now, to see some fresh scats. It was easy getting up the slope to Audubon Pond, but then the fun began. Not only was the snow deep but it was not easy judging the edge of the very high pond. I did make it to the beaver work in the northwest corner of the pond. The wide canal there is open

and I could see where the beavers marched off into the woods cutting a line of small elms.

I could see that they did this when there was higher snow on the ground because their cuts on the trees were very high for beavers.

I think they've also been back in the north cove of the pond where they had cut some big ash. One smaller ash was well stripped

and an ash that crossed a small boardwalk had been almost cut in half

but clearly their major activity since I was last here has been cutting small elms and bringing them into the pond. No piles of nibbled sticks around. I sat on the bench and contemplated the lodge.

Did beavers live the cold winter in that modest dome? Certainly no sign of them using any bank burrows. I could get to Shangri-la Pond on the high ridge north of the string of swamp ponds east of Audubon Pond, and it was a nice way to approach Shangri-la. I even saw a few deer leaping the way I was going. It looked like the beavers might have made holes just outside the lodge and not far from the dam, but the former was iced over today and the latter, while open, had no nibbled sticks around it.

The north canal was open and stabbing well into the ice of the pond

but nothing was swimming in it this afternoon. I think it had just gotten above freezing but the west wind had picked up. I found a warm spot on dry grass behind some rocks that blocked the wind but not my view of the pond. Plus from that vantage I could put the lodge in perspective tucked under venerable pines and an ageless granite wall.

Even a striking adult bald eagle flew over, but didn't distract me from my vigil, my spring sport, counting beavers as they emerge from the winter. Finally I went down and took photos showing how the red oak trunk looks without snow

I think they've been gnawing that again. I know they have just been gnawing the trunk of the maple at the end of the canal.

The ice along the canal had retreated so much that what sticks they may have piled there floated away. I will have to get a new grip on the state of all their work here, and I'll have to figure out when they like to come out. Certainly not partial to the afternoon like the Lost Swamp Pond beavers. I didn't go to that pond -- flat most of the way, too much soft snow. So I headed home taking the quickest way back to the South Bay trail and then following that around to the town. I may have seen a phoebe, but as it bobbed its tail, it didn't call.

April 7 we went south for four days, missing the continuing thaw that still has a ways to go. We went to our land first thing in the morning to see how much sap flowed from the maple trees. Not as much as we expected and only two of ten trees were still dripping, and very slowly. So Leslie boiled what she had, and decided to call it a season. Not a good one, slow to start and then interrupted by a week of cold and then too warm a thaw. While collecting sap from the maple near the Deep Pond, I checked on that pond. The beaver worked on the central portion of the dam and has let the water flow over the west end of the dam, which strikes me as a good idea. The central portion had required the most repairing, and if what the beaver had done washed completely out, the pond would get rather shallow. The west end is in much better shape and probably won't be washed away too much. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera but there was not much to see. Most of the pond was still ice, rotting ice, but still thick. The inlet creek had only opened up a few yards into the pond and the opening in front of the lodge was not very big
at all. After collecting sap I went up to the Teepee Pond to saw some ironwoods into logs. I hiked up to the Turtle Bog. In most years we see Blanding's turtles on the bank of the bog in March. Today most of the bog was iced over

but there was enough open water along the edges to allow a turtle to get out and catch some rays.

No sign that any had been out. I walked down to the inner valley which is largely snow free but the large pool tucked in on its upper east side is still mostly ice.

As are the Teepee Pond and First Pond. As I stood looking up at them from the valley I was struck by how shallow they seemed. The beaver canal pointing to the southwest was dry.

So I walked below the dam and ducked under the tangles of honeysuckle and grape vines to see what was happening. It looks like there is a hole deep in the dam. Since I saw no signs of the them in the pond during the winter, I can't blame muskrats for undermining the dam. No beaver has touched the dam since the summer of 2005 so this might just be a general failure caused by erosion. Taking a break from sawing I sat on my chair overlooking a small patch of open water along the sun drenched north shore of Teepee Pond. I saw a few water bugs, one boatmen
and several smaller swimmers. Then I saw a bullhead swimming along the bottom. I twitched but didn't bring out the camcorder and then the bullhead buried itself in the muddy bottom of the pond, something I'd never seen before. I thought I heard a
chipmunk when I came up to the pond, but none appeared as they often do when I saw there. We heard a phoebe around our house, but none here. Ditto for a few peepers. The song sparrows called out, as well as robins. After lunch I headed for Wildcat Pond which proved to be quite a dance to avoid deep snow and deep puddles. I began by going down the snowfree inner valley, then up to the Hemlock Cathedral where I avoided the snow but confronted the thick, damp litter underneath the canopy. No surprise, but for two months I've walked over it all sight out of mind under
the snow. I finally made it to the rock ledge where I last sat looking down at the beavers. I saw that one beaver at least had come up to the ledge since I left because saplings flanking the rock I sat on had been nipped.

Then I had to try to figure out what was happening down on the pond. Now I could see that the hole the beavers had made came up a rock right beside the pond. Of course, the hole had widened into the large patch of open water

but all the other points of interest in the pond were separated from that widened hole by a good bit of snow.

I tried to get a close-up of the lodge and saw a nice sized flotilla of logs floating in the open water around the lodge suggesting the beavers used that hole a good bit too.

Then I was impressed by the large number of stripped logs on top of the lodge. I should try to document the growth of this pick-up-sticks roof. I couldn't get good close-up but it looks like the beavers cut down over half of the
winterberry bush. This area gets a slow flow of water because the gradient of the valley is rather anemic. So there has been no rush of water to open the central channel of the pond.

It looks like the beavers must have done much of the opening, save along the west shore where it looked like there is a general melting of ice into a large pool of water. I walked down the ridge to see if there were any signs of beavers being there, and I did see an elm, cut in the fall, but being stripped now.

So the beavers have been opening this section of the pond. And they came up to gnaw on the exposed root of a large pine tree. I walked up through the snow to the dam of the boundary pool and it looked like no beavers had ventured that far.

As I took that photo, I saw my first mourning cloak. It actually flapped around my head, mistaking me for a some bare high ground. Then I picked my way along the west slope of the valley. I saw one yellow orange butterfly. Most of the snow was soft and not that deep, but in shady areas I could still walk on ice wedged between rocks and trees. I got back home on the island with plenty of time to hike out to check the beavers but I decided another 18 hours of melting would make the going much easier. They'll be more distance to cover, more snow and floods to negotiate, tomorrow.

April 8 I headed off for my grand tour of the island shore and ponds at about 1:30. My delaying this tour for almost 48 hours meant that most of the snow was gone. After a normal winter I take pleasure in one last battle with the snow and ice, but this year three months of snow and ice were challenging enough. We probably had 6 feet of snow in total. The only snow on Antler Trail was where we and the deer had made a path down the north slope. As I came down the north slope of the
ridge, going down to South Bay, I saw a half dozen deer flee through the woods. I didn't get a photo of them but I did photograph where they had been, a flat that had just lost its snow.

Don't know why deer would find that attractive, perhaps the leaves are so pressed down it is easier to see acorns. After crossing over the rushing waters of the creek coming down from the second swamp, I walked up to the New Pond
knoll. Several wood ducks flew up from the pond. I could see the creek coming down from the Second Swamp Pond, and hoped such a generous flow would prompt otters to go up to the ponds above.

But there were no otter scats on the old latrine on the New Pond knoll. Thanks in part to the rush of water down the creek the entire cove of South Bay is free of ice. As always, I walked down to the latrine above the old dock, and I
saw in an instant that otters had been there.

There were several scats

and all relatively fresh.

There was also a mud mark low on the shore, the size of what a beaver would push up.

Of course, as I continued up the trail along the north shore of the bay, I kept my eye out for otter signs and beaver activity. Behind the mossy bank under a leaning willow that otters sometimes use, I saw a bleached and breaking turtle shell

There were some pike or carp bones nearby too, and a hole probably used by raccoons. I also saw some freshly nibbled beaver sticks in the water

and I don't think these were blown in because, as I saw when I walked farther up the bay, there is a wide shelf of rotting ice at the entrance to the bay.

I saw possible scent mounds and scats at the docking rock a few days ago. It looked like an otter or two had been scraping there again in the same pile of leaves, and there was another scat on the rock itself. This time closer to the water.

There was also a bloated, bleached dead fish in the water.

Not sure what kind. Looks too stubby for a carp but it was obviously rather bloated. I checked the rock where the water runs down from Audubon Pond but there were no signs of otters or beavers. I took a photo of the icy reach which looked like it almost ended below the latrine up above the rocks.

There was a corridor of open water right along the north shore. I kept studying the ice flanking it, hoping to see holes where otters might have popped out from under the rotting ice, or left fish remains up on the ice, but I just saw a few sticks of old wood. On the ground, at my feet, I saw my first
garter snake of the year.

I saw one new scat at the latrine above the entrance to South Bay.

There seemed be a lot of scraping through the leaves, but no scats behind the scrapping. Lots of animals are scraping the leaves at this time of year, even the deer. The one scat didn't look as fresh as the others I had been seeing.

I continued out to the Narrows, and noticed the bones of a dead deer in the water just off the shore. Over the winter I had seen bits and pieces of a deer here. The bulk of the carcass must have been buried in the show and ice.

I paused to enjoy the tingling shards along the edge of the rotting ice, dancing to the tune of a brisk west wind.

As I continued along the Narrow's trail I saw fresh beaver work on a willow that was down on the shore, and not easy to get to.

For the past two years the beavers seem to have been a lot more vigorous as they gnawed these low willows. It looked like this main trunk of this willow was almost severed. Be curious to see if these almost cut down willows get leaves this spring. I didn't see any more beaver work as I continued onto the rock jutting out in the Narrows. I did see a thin pine well girdled by a porcupine.

The Narrows was open and I could see patches of ice in Eel Bay.

I also two osprey up in their power pole nest above the Narrows.

The west wind was pinning a huge ice floe to the east shore the Narrows

and I had to take another photo.

I headed up to Audubon Pond which remains half covered with ice. I saw some stripped sticks outside the bank lodge on the west shore and a bit of mud low on the lodge, so perhaps the beavers are staying there closer to the work they
have been doing in the northwest corner of the pond.

It was hard to get a good photo of their work since behind the major stripping they did of a down trunk, it is quite spread out.

I think I can tell their more recent work. The cut on the trees is lower -- beavers no longer up on the deep snow, and the trees they are cutting are a bit thicker.

But I didn't really make a study of it. At first glance it looked like there was nothing new on or around the main lodge, but then I saw some stripped sticks floating beside it.

So perhaps they are still there. I headed up to the ridge south of the ponds to the east, and almost heard chorus of peepers, but only three or four of them started it and didn't sustain it. I heard one comb frog down on Thicket Pond. All those ponds were ice free, and I wondered if the beavers in Shangri-la might regret their move because Shangri-la is always slow to melt. Looking down at the pond from the north west it looked rather frozen

but the north shore of the pond is open, and I soon saw that the lower portion of the pond is well open. As I headed that way a half dozen wood ducks flew off, but two male buffleheads, one female and a male wood duck stayed on the pond.

The buffleheads were obviously in a courting mode, not that I could make much sense of it. The female kept following the smaller male, and the smaller male seemed loath to get too far away from the other male. Eventually the larger male started diving and then the couple did the same. Is it possible the female was staying close to a brother, not a lover, and that the big male would get her in the end? I could have watched them for hours on this warm afternoon, but.... I also appreciated seeing the wood duck with them. I think of wood ducks as small
and it seemed much larger than the buffleheads. I had plenty of time to watch the beaver lodge, nothing stirred. Judging from sticks on the ice still near the lodge, the beavers are still there.

Open water extends from the lodge to the dam and up the north canal which has widened into an arm of the pond.

I walked along it to see if I could spot fresh beaver work. Yes, they are stripping a log next to the pond

and continue to gnaw into the trunk that has already afforded them two trees, and they continue to strip the trunk laying across the canal.

I think there is more fresh work but I can't be sure it is not just old work looking fresh as it is revealed by the melting snow. I didn't get too close to the dam because I didn't want to scare away the ducks. The pond is full but it didn't looked like the beavers had worked on the dam. As I walked along the east shore of the pond I had to jump over a couple streams flooding into the pond. Where one stream fell to the ponds level several roots had been cut.

That looked fresh. I couldn't be sure why the beavers cut those roots -- beginning of a new canal, or just tasty at this time of year? The board walk across the East Trail Pond was almost flooded but I made it across without getting my feet wet. Here I met my first noisy geese of the day, and flushed my first pair of mallards. I continued on to the Second Swamp Pond dam and saw how vast the spring can be. For months I chronicled the beavers here as they moved out of small holes at the dam. Now they have a huge pond. Water gushes out of the hole
which seems to keep it from going over the dam.

I didn't see any fresh work but there was so much old work I really didn't try to find anything new. I knew I didn't have a chance to get across the dam without getting my feet wet, so I walked up the north shore of the pond. I wanted to check the otter latrine on the north slope anyway. We've had a bit of a south wind the last few days and there were chunky beaver stripped logs blown up along the shore.

I didn't see many small stripped sticks. It looked like something had been up on the otter latrine, but there were no scats there. I knew that there was a hole in the Upper Second Swamp Pond dam and that the pond was virtually empty but it is always a shock to see that.

I think a beaver made the hole in the dam

but, I did see some prints in the mud revealed behind the dam and they could be otter prints.

Usually raccoon prints don't go into the pond, but this pond is very shallow and a raccoon would -- I saw some dead fish in it, but old dead fish. Then I went up to the Lost Swamp Pond dam and looked for otter scat, and there it was

but was it fresh? What is striking in the wider photo I took of the dam is the brown stains on the clump of grass where the scats were. The scats were hard, and so, perhaps old, but that is a fresh urine stain on the grass.

This collection of small scats was similar to the spread I saw above the old dock at the end of South Bay. Here too, because the ice was gone, I was cut off from my recent chronicles of the beavers. When they decide its time to repair the dam, I might get a good look at them again. I didn't even go over to check the mossy cove for otter scats because the south shore had a good bit of snow.

There were geese, mallards, and hooded mergansers on the Big Pond. As I walked along the dam I saw where a deer dug down for a root,

not elecampane. There's none of that here. Water is flooding over the dam but plenty of water remains in the pond and the dam looks solid.

No sign of beavers or otters down along it. I sat a bit, pretty weary. Now, to go about seeing how many beavers survived the winter -- another evening, not today.