May 19 to 26, 2008

May 19 yesterday I kayaked around South Bay and saw a heron catch a small fish, and four boats of bullhead fishermen not catching any. Only one common tern working the bay. I noticed beaver nibblings and cuts on most of the willows all
around the bay. But the big sightings were otter scent mounds and a bullhead head on the rock island in the middle of the marsh.

I took the photo above today and my description of what I saw is more vivid than any photo. The scent mound on the northwest end of the flat rock was a neat ball of grass -- hard to see any associated scats (I didn't get out of the kayak). In the middle of the island, detrious was scraped up off the rock and I could see a scat there. Then on the east end of the rock, there was a large scrape up through the vegetation going down to dirt with a mound at the edge of the rock. I couldn't see scat, but right at the edge of the water, in line with the scraping, was a bullhead head. I couldn't help but think that the otter left the head as a further celebration of its claim.

We had rain with heavy west winds for most of today then when it cleared the wind picked up even more. The sun came out affording us a brilliant late afternoon. I hiked over to South Bay to check the otter latrines, to see if the marking I saw yesterday on the rock island forming the peninsula in the bay spread to the other latrines. There were no new wrinkles in the latrine by the marsh on the south shore of the north cove. The water was too high and I couldn't get out to the willow latrine. And there was no new activity at the Old Dock latrine. But there
at the old docking rock, the latrine was extended on the other side of the rotting log with major scraping and dead leaves piled up on the log.

This was such intensive scraping that I would have blamed some other animal save that once again there was a big plop of otter scat on the log.

It was about the same story up at the latrine above the entrance to South Bay. I saw more scraping of leaves and dirt. They even scraped out an old beer can that I had seen in the leaves years ago.

And there was a ribbon of scat on a tuft of grass in between the scrapes.

There was also a pathway to the scrapes

and beside that path there was a very fresh tan scat. This was not a typical otter scat and did not have any fish scales in it, but it was lax and bubbled like otter scat.

But I don't know why an otter should be scraping so much, and why one scat should be black and the other yellow brown. Up at Audubon Pond the question was, where are the beavers living? Did the drop in the water level caused by opening
the drain prompt them to move back to the lodge in the pond? It looked like there were new scent mounds flanking the bank lodge I thought they had abandoned which suggests that they might still be there. Then as I walked away from the lodge I saw a stripped stick on the ground that struck me as significant and something swam out of a burrow in the bank there. I don't think it was a beaver, but it suggested to me that despite the lower water level this bank was still attractive to animals.

That said, I didn't see any new beaver work anywhere around the pond. I did see a heron, and a turtle with its nose out of the water. Then I headed along the ridge to Shangri-la Pond and found a seat on the granite ridge north of
the lodge with a good view of the north canal pond. I got there a bit early, 6 pm, and didn't expect beavers to be out. The wind was still brisk and seeing the wind sweep a pond is entertainment enough, save that it was getting colder. Of course, I could see signs of the beavers' activity. There were stripped logs on a little mud platform near the lodge

and looking to the north canal pond I could see where the beavers have been girdling trees.

I didn't walk down for a closer look, which I need to do to see how recent this work is, because I wanted to see a beaver. I soon saw signs of life in the pond. A goose was sitting on a nest right below me.

It took me a few minutes to notice it, but I can't say it was well camouflaged: brown bird on brown grass surrounded by a sea of green. Then a pair of wood ducks swam into view. The female hopped up on a log and preened herself and the
male kept nipping bugs off the pond surface. Evidently there were no eggs nor ducklings to mind. Then a muskrat popped out of the beaver lodge and swam up a channel. Soon enough it swam back with a bouquet of grass and took that into the lodge. Then it popped out again and swam down the same channel. Then I looked back
toward the center of the pond and saw a beaver swimming. It soon dove and I never saw it come back up. So I kept looking at the north canal pond, thinking it might have surfaced there, and I kept looking for the return of the muskrat. So, once again, I was in my element. Now, while the female goose was on the nest amongst the greenery, the male goose was out in the middle of the pond, just floating in the water. Then it began to swim and just then the beaver surfaced and immediately made a splashing dive. Was it reacting to me or the goose? I am pretty sure the wind was
wafting my scent in that direction. The beaver surfaced immediately and swam, nose p, in my direction. It stopped and floated and then dove quietly. A few minutes later I saw a beaver again, the same one probably, and again, it looked at me, hard,
and then dove quietly. I saw the muskrat return with another bouquet. Then the pileated woodpecker made an appearance climbing up a tall pine. I was getting cold and it was dinner time. I saw two rose breasted grosbeaks during my hike, up along the Antler Trail and at the edge of the woods north of Audubon Pond. They were relatively quiet and skittish, perhaps because of the cold.

May 20 we went to our land and I headed deep in the woods and began sawing the dead ash tree I cut down the other day while the birds and mosquitoes went about their business. A rose breasted grosbeak greeted me but it seemed out of sorts. I think because there were so many ravens around. After two hours of sawing I headed down to Wildcat Pond. I didn't see any sure signs of new beaver activity except that there were fewer stripped logs on the mud bar near the lodge, like one of the beavers was cleaning up. I always study beavers adding to the
chaos, and it is hard for me to picture a beaver clearing the deck, so to speak. Ironically, I found a bit of beaver poop on top of a small moss covered rock,

didn't clean up that from the long winter. Perplexed by the beavers, I enjoyed the jacks-in-the-pulpit instead, a photo study of preacher jack:

I first thought all the jacks were growing atop a granite boulder encrusted with dirt, but then I saw even bigger jacks growing below in deeper soil.

I also saw a species of honeysuckle I've never seen before.

Not sure if the flower is fully out.

All these flowers are blooming in the sundrenched yet moist shore of the pond under the mossy granite cliff

The beavers, I think, are responsible for the flood of sunlight, and so perhaps for these flowering plants too. In the afternoon I took Leslie down to see the flowers, and got a better photo of the star flower.

We also saw another new flower on the way down to the Wildcat Pond.

I also found four morrels along our trail below the ripple rocks, as we call them.

I also took down more aspen, this time two long branches without many leaves, threw them into the water behind the dam, and then walked around the pond. I saw more aspen logs on the lodge but a lot more cut honeysuckle

Some were on the lodge and others in the water in front of the lodge. I also saw that the other night that the beaver was not eating aspen leaves in the middle of the pond, but algae blooms.

I walked back where the trillium and phlox were blooming. The former have ended. The dominant color now is green, led by the overarching false solomon's seal.

I didn't see any fresh beaver gnawing but then when I came up to the dam again, I saw the beaver floating in front of the lodge. It began swimming and though it might have been sniffing the air, I think it was skimming some of the thick pollen off the pond surface, but not for long. It dove back into the lodge.

May 22 rain and chores kept me in yesterday and this morning I was up at 4am to take Ottoleo to the airport. Toward evening I was my old self again and walked around the Deep Pond before dinner and saw no signs of beaver activity save for collecting more honeysuckle and putting it on the lodge. After my circumnavigation, as I walked up to the dam, I saw a beaver out by the lodge under the knoll. I went up along the road where I could get a view of the pond.

It dove back into the bank lodge at the knoll. And this seemed to be the slower moving beaver that before seemed more oriented to the burrows along the high bank. Going back up the road I saw several slugs making a crowd.

For such slow movers, it's a wonder you don't see more of the them knotted together like that. Then the rains returned, showers, I should say, punctuated by brilliant blasts of sun. So when I cut two aspen logs, we've about run out of branches of the tree I cut, I dressed in a slicker and didn't take a camera. As I walked up to dump the aspen next to the dam, I saw a beaver munching pond grasses. It dove quietly as I went about my business. Then I quickly retreated and parked myself up along the road to see what the beaver would do. I think I
disturbed the quieter beaver and that the other beaver was the first to come back out in the pond, coming out from the knoll lodge. It immediately started slapping its tail, but it kept swimming over toward the aspen, though never getting too close.
Then it made a tour of the pond and first went up to munch some grass in the southeast corner of the pond on the other side of the inlet and then it swam over to the northeast corner and went up on the somewhat high bank and started grooming. Then the quiet beaver reappeared and swam toward but not to the aspen. I almost
got the impression that they thought I was imposing on them. Then Leslie came down the road and while explaining what happened, I had to cough to clear the pollen out of my throat and that prompted the grooming beaver to plunge back into the water. We
walked down the end of the road and when we walked back neither beaver was out.

May 23 after breakfast I went down to see how the beavers managed the aspen and it looked like they reconciled themselves to my imposition. I could see one chunky log clearly and the branch I took looked stripped. Both were in a line of aspen leftovers along the knoll.

I walked up to the dam curious to see if I could see bits of aspen bark there. No. But judging from the compressed grass a beaver sat there. There was a bit of cattail rhizome on the grass

and it was easy to see that they just pushed up mud on the dam. They are working it up and over the dead stalks they put on the dam.

At the edge of the pond, right where I usually walk in, I saw a cut honeysuckle and a collection of dead stalks, waiting for delivery, as it were.

As I was nosing about, a muskrat popped up in the water and swam across the pond.

I haven't been to White Swamp in a couple of weeks and last time I was there I saw signs of beaver activity. But first, out of habit, I walked down to the otter latrine, though it usually gets overgrown in May. There are two ways to
get to the latrine: walking down a ravine behind the shore of the swamp, or walking down the shore. I went the first way, a bit easier on a damp morning, and so I curled around and approached the otter latrine from the west. Just before I reached the latrine proper I was delighted to see some birch sticks freshly stripped by a beaver

and just beyond that I saw some dead wet leaves left in small piles probably by a beaver marking territory.

I have yet to figure out the psychology of beaver marking. This spring in the stable colonies I watch, there has been little marking. But I take these marks as a sign that White Swamp is slowly recovering from the over trapping during the winter of 2007-8. There were no signs of otter activity at the latrine, no new scats. However, I couldn't help but pause over the avalanche of old scat. I once ran into the Ph. D. dissertation on how otter scats play a role in fertilizing the soil. Here a solomon's seal is arching up over the as yet infertile mess left by the otters.

I next checked the cove where beavers have been nibbling and have been gnawing on a downed maple. I didn't seen any nibbles, but the was more gnawing on the maple,

judging from a photo I took three weeks ago. But there certainly hasn't been much more activity there. As I walked along the swamp I noticed that its water level is relatively low. This is best seen at the inlet, where the island
of mud where beavers often leave their nibblings is now connected to the land.

I saw no signs of beaver activity here but with the water level dropping it is possible that some of the mud I see everywhere along the shore had been pushed up by beavers. So I get the impression that the beaver that is active here can range far without getting into contested territory. This is somewhat analogous to how beavers share South Bay, coming up for a bite here and there. But before making all this speculation, I should see the beaver or beavers who are down here. I had to do some work. So I went down and split some of the ash I had cut
down on the way to Wildcat Pond. Of course, I took a break and went down to the pond to see if I could see signs of fresh beaver activity. Once again, it was obvious that the beavers are not matching their erstwhile cutting of saplings and small trees. However, both wallows in the canal below the Boundary Pool dam looked like they had been bellied through

and then the mud bar near the lodge had a different look. Of course, what I am looking for is a fresh pile of logs and I didn't see that. But there were a few new wee sticks up on it, so either a beaver nibbled there or it at least nosed the sticks that were there into a new alignment.

At this time of year, I am loath to leave a pond without sitting for at least twenty minutes to allow something to happen. As I came down to the pond I was reminded of that when I saw a duck, another juvenile hooded merganser, I think, swimming in the very shallow water. Yet it still managed several full body dives underwater. As I walked down the pond, it was loath to leave too, and perched up on a nearby tree squawking now and then, until it couldn't wait me out, and flew off. But it is good I had stayed because about ten minutes into the sojourn a muskrat swam out of the rocks below me. Before I had always seen the muskrat come out of the beaver lodge. I waited until the muskrat collected its bouquet to see if it would then swim back into the lodge. No. It swam back into the bank of moss, ferns and rocks. So why did the muskrats move? Maybe there is a pregnant beaver in that lodge.... Before heading home to do some house cleaning on the island -- guests coming -- I took more aspen logs down to the Deep Pond. I walked behind the dam again and admired the work they had done, really better than any beavers before.

I think of the beavers here as refugees from the trauma of trapping and I feel lucky that these two are still able to apply their skills so well despite the trauma of probably losing their entire family.

May 24 This is the time of year when I like to sit by a large pond in the evening and watch the show of muskrats, beavers, and birds, but yesterday just when I planned to head out, a squall hit and since most of my footwear was
already wet, I stayed home. So this morning I did the next best thing: sit next to beaver ponds in the morning. On my way along the Antler Trail I saw three deer, one with a start of some antlers. As I walked through the meadows on my way to the Big
Pond, I heard grosbeaks and orioles. They seem to be doing better than the towhees. As soon as I got to the Big Pond I saw that the beavers had been active. The water behind the dam was muddy

and there was a new pile of stripped sticks near my perch. Sun too glaring to get a good photo. So I sat waiting for a muskrat to take the day shift -- but only a male mallard came out of the tall grasses. Then a yellow warbler
latched onto a cattail top right in front of me and at the same time a heron landed on the dam, right in front of me. I knew that if I twitched both would fly away. After they did, I got my camera out, and soon enough another yellow bird latched onto a cattail head.

Then I had the pleasure of walking along this well repaired dam. The beavers are using honeysuckle on the dam. I don't think they have quiet figured out the best way to use it. Usually, as in this case, they just lay it on the dam

They have also found old logs to form bracing below the dam

but their real genius is displayed in their moulding the mud. There has been a dam here of some sort for thirty years or more which means there is plenty of silt behind the dam. From the dam I could see that the beavers put some leafy vegetation on the lodge. So I walked out there to check

The lodge looks a bit small to me. I was hoping the leafy branches were honeysuckle, but I think it is willow, but it seemed to be applied with the same seemingly unthought out idea.

Have to think about this. I walked back on the trail the beavers had used to get to the woods in the fall. It seemed unused and I saw no fresh work. When I came down to the Lost Swamp I saw a goose with at least four goslings way out near the big lodge in the southeast corner of the pond. So much for all the nests failing here. I sat up above the mossy cove latrine and waited. Soon I saw a snapping turtle swimming below me

This turned into quite a drama when another snapper appeared behind it. While neither was on the surface both periodically tipped their nose out and sniffed the air. The one in the photo, the first I saw, was the larger. After the smaller one nosed out a few times, the big fellow turned and swam back toward it. The interloper disappeared. Painted turtles were mostly logged on, we might say, one swam below me, much faster than the snapper. Then I finally saw what I came for, a muskrat swam across the pond and went into a burrow on the north shore. I walked over there and got a photo of its gangway

So far there seems to be few muskrats here. Does that mean those here will expand their territory? Judging from poop on logs, the ones here are keeping to their usual territory. I was hoping to see a sure sign of beaver activity at the dam and only saw more grass pushed up

However the entire pond is so muddy they can't imagine muskrats, geese and ducks whittling down the pond vegetation to that extent without the help of the beavers. Looking at the vegetation floating up in the muddy water, you can
almost see the big beaver jaws working

I sat by the dam for a bit and then turned down to the Second Swamp Pond. I saw a goose family and another pair of geese in the almost dry Upper Second Swamp Pond. I walked slowly along the dam and as I realized that I wasn't alarming them that much, I continued across taking photos and video

The goslings betrayed no fear at all. Four of the eight kept pecking the mud for food. I almost got the sense that this was two families with the two males together and the two females together with the goslings. Compared to all that, the Second Pond looked rather dull, but I sat by it for a half hour and enjoyed a diving tern -- about a half dozen dives behind me but as it approached the front of the pond where I was sitting it just flew high and higher and disappeared. Usually terns never notice me, and I don't think this one did. It probably just got
its fill and headed back to the river where its nest is. The lodge looked unused save for an apron of bare pond bottom. Muskrats could do that, but beavers could do it better as they eat up the vegetation on the pond bottom.

Then a little muskrat swam out and I spent the rest of my sojourn tracing its happy journey as it nibbled what must seem to it as an unlimited array of grasses.

I took the wide photo of the little muskrat to show how untended the dam looks. I'll have to park myself out here one evening. I went down to the end of the canal which was a focus of beaver activity, always visually exciting to me, in the deepest winter. Now it is all alive, and seemingly lifeless -- no fresh beaver signs.

As I came up to the East Trail Pond dam I saw the brightest green mallard heads -- six of them. The photo didn't turn out. I took another step and they all flew off. Wood ducks flew off as I approached Shangri-la Pond. The goose was
still on the nest in the middle of the pond and its mate on guard. The water behind the dam was quite muddy. This could be from the beavers digging up mud to fill the holes in the drain pipe. It looked like they had done a good job and the water level
was a foot higher than in the fall.

I walked up to the little pond up from the north canal and it immediately struck me as a nice place to come up and chew on logs. I could see stripped wood, but here, the water wasn't muddy.

So I looked for work up on banks of the pond and soon saw it. They cut several thin and tall ironwoods but it didn't look like they had segmented many.

Two thin maple trunks, that they cut, seem to be getting all their attention.

This pond is about a half hour's hike from my house, but it is on a trail easy to follow at night. I think I need to come out here late because the last three times I came out at around six, the first beaver out knew all about me and was none too pleased I was there. In the fall and winter, I watched them for hours and could get very close. So far that it the only difference that might be ascribed to the death of the beaver in this colony back in December. Perhaps another beaver now has more authority and runs a tighter ship. Of course, there maybe kits in the lodge or on the way, but I have watched this colony for years in the spring and gotten very close to the beavers, and the kits came popped out in July. I walked up the ridge south of the pond, glancing down at the lodge which looked about the same. The blueberries are blooming and I saw small blooms nestled close to the pink granite that I couldn't ignore.

The pistil of the flower almost looked like it was the same stuff as the ancient granite.

I only checked one otter latrine on my way home, the old dock latrine, and there were no new wrinkles there. Some hikes it's best just to concentrate on the certainties of geese and beavers, and not trouble myself with the
deep mysteries of the otters.

I spent the afternoon writing the journal entry above. Then, as guests moved in, we headed to our land, and soon I was back with the beavers. As I headed down to the Deep Pond, Leslie called me back. In the grassy path, just beside the road, I walked right over a painted turtle. Leslie
made me get a good look at her.

We assume that convex carapace indicates her sex, though I don't what to make of the colors seemingly printed on the bottom of the shell.

I took a thick, chunky aspen log down to the Deep Pond and put it by the dam as usual. What had been left there before had been taken to the knoll where the bank lodge is, a growing display of leftovers. I wonder if the logs will be taken back to bolster the dam. Having them along the shore by the lodge seems almost gaudy, the beavers showing off their good luck. Then after dinner I headed down to Wildcat Pond, once again trying to figure out if the beavers were still there or had moved to another pond and lodge. But first I had to confront the mosquitoes. As long as I kept moving I had to manage ten flying around my head and then when I got my camera out to take a photo of the Boundary Pool dam I had to worry about them biting my hands. Then before I took the photo, I heard pounding
in the water of Wildcat Pond. I turned, expecting to see a deer and instead saw a beaver plowing into and then through the water heading for the lodge. I followed carefully in case there were other beavers out. Indeed I didn't even scare two geese who were in the pond. They slowly swam to the dam. Two wood ducks did fly off. I finally got close enough for a full view of the lodge and sat down so the swarm of mosquitoes seemed to be trying to pin me to the moist moss on the rocks behind and below me. Nothing stirred around the lodge and I moved halfway up the ridge so I
would have a view of the dam too. Half of the mosquitoes soon got bored with me. I took a photo of the mud bar

and it didn't look much different than the photo I took of it a yesterday, but the stripped sticks on it looked, well, a bit different. Anyway I didn't need to prove that a beaver had been in the pond. I saw a beaver in the pond. The question was: did it flee into the lodge or over the dam? After waiting a half hour, I seemed to get an answer. A beaver came over the dam and into the pond. Since its nose was up and sniffing hard, I am pretty sure it was the beaver that just fled the pond. Beavers generally don't come up into a pond that
warily. Even though I was losing light, I decided it was time to walk down the ridge and get a look at the ponds below Wildcat Pond. Perhaps the rest of the colony was at that moment bobbing up grasses in the wider more open ponds. I had to pick my way
through juniper, honeysuckle and pines and one likely pathway was blocked by a porcupine up about eye level in a small tree.

I didn't try to squeeze by it. When I finally got a look at the pond below Wildcat Pond there was a wide ribbon of brown water down the middle of it. That seemed to confirm my ideas and I even saw ripples in the water. I
strained to see another beaver, but couldn't. So I went down the ridge to the pond and got a full view of that pond and the even larger pond below, indeed a very large pond. I saw something move there and studied it through my camcorder which works well in the twilight. At that time of dusk distances can stretch out. As I looked down pond I thought I was deciphering a shaded expanse, another world much larger than the green world around and above Wildcat Pond that I had grown to know. Then I saw that two geese were moving down in that pond, and those geese suddenly loomed as
large as the swan in a production of Lohengrin. My vision collapsed in confusion. Those lower ponds were not that large and there were no beavers in them. I managed to get home in the dark. The measured calls of the many tree frogs, even one peeper,
calmed me along. And I had a lot to think about. Did the fleeing beaver avoid the lodge because a pregnant beaver was in there? Or was there only one beaver remaining from the colony of four or five that I saw back in April?

May 25 this morning I went up to the Teepee Pond to cut some firewood and I was startled by how muddy the water looked, and what looked like trimmed vegetation in the pond.

Could a beaver be browsing in this pond? The First Pond looked as muddy and as depleted of
vegetation.

However, there was no grass on shore trimmed at all, and that is also what beavers and muskrats like to eat in the spring. Plus, the little pool above the First Pond, where I had seen beaver nibbled sticks a month ago was sprouting out with green grass all over. Nothing browsing there.

So thinking I might want to sit here in the night to see what might be happening prompted me to resume a project to clear away honeysuckle and buckthorn trees that blocked a full view of the pond from the rocky ridge to the south of the pond. There is no lack of either of those trees and in a couple of years they will grow back. The ravens noisily flew over me, but, so it seemed to me, ignored what I was doing. Not so one female warbler of a species I couldn't identify. She flew out from a nearby thicket and rather kept an eye on me for a few minutes. Of course when I tried to sneak back and get the camera, she flew away. Then I noticed what looked like bubbling in the water and looked for mating frogs, even though that is mostly done. I saw a brown water snake instead. It too seemed to be studying what I was up to. Anyway I cut enough so that I now have a good view

from a rock seat just below the high point of the ridge.

With more clearing I would be able to see the First Pond. The drawback of the perch is that it is rather exposed to the sun and to any alert animal. However, there is a lower rock seat, and if I crave deep shade there is a moist grotto nearby that even has wee cherry trees in bloom. Well, the snake got me thinking of the Garden of Eden. The cherry trees put me in mind of Mount Vernon. But on the low rock where I plan to either sit or step up from to the high rock, there was a spread of grouse poop. So Grouse Rock sounds good to me. After lunch I took a walk around the Deep Pond. On the road, just about where I turn into to get to the dam, I saw a painted turtle walking along at a good clip. Since I was carrying an aspen log I promised to take its photo later. Then I went up to the dam and saw two geese and three goslings. They were rather alarmed to see me and
immediately the parents headed up into the long slope of tall thick grass to the east of the pond, and went so fast I didn't see how the goslings could keep up. I soon lost track of the little things. I retreated to stop alarming the geese and then
hurried around, shielded by some brush, to my perch in the bushes above the knoll where the beavers have their lodge. Didn't see the turtle back on the road. I sat for ten minutes and didn't see the geese return, nor the beavers come out as they usually do when I throw in a log. I did see a snapping turtle swimming in the pond. So I continued my hike around the pond and saw the log I left by the dam yesterday in the grass by the lodge. It was mostly stripped but some good bites remained.

As usual I didn't see any more evidence of beaver browsing. However when I got to the burrow on the high slope of the pond, I saw a streak of muddy bottom curving out from the old beaver haunt. Of course, muskrats could be creating the traffic that cleared the bottom there of vegetation.

Then I looked up and saw the geese trotting back into the pond. So much for my powers of observation. I don't know if the goslings hid or just kept trying to keep up until their parents came back to get them. I came back
to the pond after dinner and by 7:45 both beavers were out. I saw one come out of the lodge and the other swim into the pond from the inlet creek so it was probably out earlier. The first one out maybe sniffed in the direction of the logs I left, then it went up on shore and groomed itself, taking some breaks to nibble the
grass.

The other beaver kept swimming just below me (I was on the road) and I was sure it knew I was there. The haze of mosquitoes in front of me didn't shield me. But the beaver didn't slap its tail. And in its own way seemed to show me that it thought its life was good. I have never seen these beavers together (Leslie did once). Tonight the beaver that sniffed swam over to the other beaver grooming on the shore, weaved back and forth in the water a bit shyly, and then with nose down and humming softly it climbed up next to the other beaver.

I thought it was inviting the other beaver to groom it, but no. The supplicating beaver had to groom itself and after a couple of minutes went back into the pond. Then it swam over to the aspen log I put in the water that afternoon and nibbled on an attached branch. Then it swam over to the log with a bit of bark still on it by the lodge and gnawed on that. All seeming well in that beaver's world, I headed up to Grouse Rock and kept a vigil to 9:30. The sun went down and I had a nice view of that.

The ravens were mercifully quiet. I heard veeries, a wood thrush, then two whip-poop-wills; nothing stirred in the pond. Could an overabundance of crayfish be trimming the vegetation and stirring up the mud?

May 26 one afternoon we saw a scarlet tanager outside the house, and this morning a hermit thrush was sitting in a tree. We had an early shower but it was still dry enough to work on wood so I went down and sawed ash near the pool above the Boundary pool. Yes, I was surrounded by mosquitoes but also by ferns stretching up and birds, scarlet tanager and hermit thrush, now giving me their alarm calls. I was on their turf. After I sawed three large logs, I hiked down along the ridge west of the Wildcat Pond to take photos of the ponds below. No porcupine forced a detoured today. I took a photo of the muddy flooded canal below the Wildcat Pond dam and could see where something had been eating the grasses coming up out of the water, but the geese could have done that, though I saw no geese
at the moment.

Then I climbed down the ridge and took a photo of the large pond below the canal. This pond did not look muddy and I saw no beaver work around it. My theory is that the beavers harvest the pond vegetation here.

Then as I walked a bit down the pond shore I found a pile of sticks left by a beaver some nibbled and some not.

I must say this pile did not look as appetizing as the many piles of stripped sticks around Wildcat Pond and above.

I have never been so perplexed by a beaver colony. The beavers didn't simply leave, but have they separated? I walked back up the canal and noticed three or four mounds of mud on its bank. This could be dredging

but one pile looked big enough and peaked enough to be a mark

though they often get more rounded as the beavers' bottom keeps going over it. Now I'll have to keep an eye on this. Of course on the way back I checked on the jacks-in-the-pulpit, star flowers and honeysuckle. I have not taken a photo of the foam flowers that seem to be everywhere, but here there is a mass of them on top of a mossy rock.

And I walked by a fern courting, as it were,

and took a close-up.

I also took a photo of where I scared the beaver two nights ago. The water was a little muddy suggesting it visited again last night.

And I keep thinking the scent mound at the foot of the stripped elm in the background keeps getting larger, but that might be a case of the pond water level getting lower.