May 8 I took a tour of the otter latrines along South Bay and found more scent mounds along the marsh on the south shore of the north cove of the bay, the most promising development of the season. An otter added two leaf piles to the side of the three already made.
I had never found much scat in the first three piles but the two new piles had good sized scats,
but once again they seemed old before their time.
I can't blame the sun for drying out scats now as the trees above begin to leaf out. But obviously the otter here is not getting bullhead, and though I don't see many shell bits, I think it is eating crayfish. There is a period when
crayfish molt and so don't carry hard shells. I've bumbled on for years not really knowing what I am seeing in otter scats but all that frustration would end when I saw the otters. So I either have to see otters or get my head in the water and see what's available for at otter's dinner. After that promising start, I was disappointed by the Old Dock latrine. No new scats and no new wrinkles in the leaves. I did hear two, and then as I sat, a third carp splash. Otters do eat carp but in my experience they feast on them much later when the fish, I suppose, are exhausted from their spawning. A few days ago I thought the water level of the river was going down, but now it seems to be rising again. There are still groups of scaup on the bay, not as many as before, and not, as far as I can see, in a the swirl of
courtship.
Then after the disappointing check of the Old Dock latrine, I saw plenty of scraping and scating at the Docking Rock latrine further up the north shore of the bay. The area up on the little ridge that had been rolled down to dirt now had bark spread on it that the otter scraped as it pawed over a rotting log
I would blame this on another animal digging for insects, except that there was otter scat next to all the scraping
They now have two latrines on this little ridge and in the other section another rotting log was torn up, a pile a dead leaves behind that and a black scat on the top of the pile of leaves.
Otters do eat insects. And I can conjure another worry about this. There are so few fish this spring that the otters are forced to eat what they can find in rotting logs. Oh, why can't I see four otters commanding the bay, as I did one spring years ago? As usual I left the line of latrines to check Audubon Pond. The park managers have cleared the drain
and judging by the muddy water, they just did it. The water level had dropped two feet, so I anticipated a not uninteresting hike around the pond to see how the beavers and muskrats are coping. The latter likely have already had a litter of little rats that now have to be resituated. But, as usual, before going around the pond, I went back down to check the last South Bay otter latrine. I could see in an instant that the scrape of an otter had graced the ridge.
Piles of leaves are now lower down on the ridge, though I didn't see much scat. So I could blame a coyote or fox, but I haven't seen any of their poop out here all spring. Walking out to the latrine I passed a porcupine busy up in a small budding tree, not exactly hanging over the water
Its little hands easily manipulated the boughs of the little tree and it gobbed the buds like a kid eating candy on a stick, but no kid could balance on such a thin beam as this porcupine did. It gracefully walked farther out on the limb, its weight bending it down so it could get easily to the budding leaves. A porcupine, this time of year, really acts a bit like a monkey with spines. As I resumed my tour of Audubon Pond I saw that the beavers extended their tree girdling to the southwest corner of the pond.
I've watched beavers here for 30 years, and during a good bit of that time there were sizable colonies here. There was precious little tree girdling then. For the last five years or so a single beaver or a pair survived here and I thought one reached the bottom of the food barrel when it cut down shag bark hickories. The girdling of red and white oaks started last year, I think. The beavers up pond, now at Shangri-la Pond whose colony likely started down here, have become great girdlers. I always think that the beavers that come to live here come up from the river, but perhaps one is a two year old come down from the Shangri-la Pond colony, well experienced in girdling. But the more important story to cover now is the beavers' reaction to the drain. As I angled out along the shore to get a photo of how relatively high and dry their bank lodge is,
I saw a beaver swimming in an arc that suggested it had just come out of the lodge and was heading toward the drain. So I sat on a log hoping I could kibbitz as it inspected the damage. Of course, it nosed me, turned and commenced slapping. This spring I've already felt in bad odor with this beaver and now it blames me for stealing its water.... Anyway the lodge photos show at once how much time and logs the beavers have invested in it recently, including two freshly
stripped logs on top.
Now the lower water has exposed their entry tunnel into the lodge. Be curious to see if the beavers move. After my mulling over the lodge, I saw another beaver out in the pond, not looking happy either.
I tried to shrink back into the wood work, and found more girdling, and enough cutting to think that one big tree at least will take a tumble on this shore.
The curious thing is that this is a red maple which I don't think beavers really like. I've seen the bark completely stripped off downed red and white oaks, but seldom a red maple. The photo also shows that a beaver has stripped the
roots of the ash tree behind the red maple. These beavers have a taste for ash, though it's fair to say that they have not utilized the ash trees already cut as much as they might have.
My trouble is that after years of seeing beavers cut trees, I accept anything they do as making some sense. If they clear out a grove of trees, I anticipate all the good things that will grow up now that the shade is gone. If they
are picky in their lumbering in the spring, I laud the beavers for leaving trees behind for the fall. Yet something might be amiss here. Other beavers I see are placidly bringing up the spring greens growing on the bottom of the pond, or even sucking down the pollen, but these beavers are acting like they are preparing for the sudden onslaught of winter. Thanks to the water being drained, I could go out and sit on the bench near the lodge in the pond. With one beaver still slapping its tail at me, it wasn't a pleasant rest. Then I noticed that the white goose eggs on the lodge were untended
and I saw the two geese over in the causeway grass! I have never seen eggs abandoned like this. I walked around to the causeway, my homeward route, and both geese went back into the pond but even then the goose did not go back to her
eggs. Meanwhile I didn't see any signs of the muskrats. Last time I was here I saw three out at once. At the southeast corner of the pond I saw that technically the beavers are stripping the large tree there, and not gnawing into the underlying wood, which I associate with more deadly girdling.
I didn't investigate too closely because I wanted to get back up into the woods to see if the one beaver still in the pond would go check the drain or a goose would go back to the eggs. No, in both cases.
May 9 we spent the afternoon at the land and first we took more aspen branches down to the Deep Pond, where we saw that the branches we left before had been taken. Today it wasn't easy to see where the logs were. I lingered nosing around and soon saw the beaver, once again low in the water looking at me. After a few minutes it quietly dove.
Then I walked down by the pools above the Wildcat Pond so I could compare before and after photos to prove that a beaver had been there. That was an easy game to play because in the Boundary Pool the beaver left a well leaved
freshly cut sapling in the pond
And I could see that it had nibbled a bit on the tree it cut down on the little island in the pool. However those were the only sure signs of activity I saw. The mud bar outside the lodge looked the same, as did the lodge. Since I come
down here so often I thought I might as well cut down some old trees for firewood so that when I walk back I can bring something out. I sawed up a thin ash and then saw a tall, good sized ash tree that was dead and rotting, so I cut that down. As much for developing the skill of getting a big tree to fall where I wanted as for the firewood (only half the tree is probably good.) I managed to keep the tree from falling on me and got it to fall just within 90 degrees of its intended destination. No signs of beaver activity in the valley pool. No sightings of a grosbeak but we did see four blue jays fighting during a wild flight up into the scrubby woods where we once found a blue jay's nest.
May 10 Recently I have tried to dissuade people who want to come out with me to look for otters, since I have not seen them in so long. Spring is generally not a good time to see otters anyway. But a family from Toronto wanted to see otter habitat anyway. So I took a granddad, father and 8 year old son over to South Bay in the boat. We checked the Old Dock latrine and then walked up to the mossy cove latrine of the Lost Swamp Pond. Both latrines have been active and I thought the former was due for an otter's visit. Alas, there was no fresh poop.
Fortunately an osprey and hawk were active, and we saw a huge snapping turtle in the remnants of Otter Hole Pond. The father was interested in everything and the son was a good hiker and granddad didn't complain, so despite seeing little we had a good
time. Two deer were grazing in the southeast end of the Lost Swamp Pond and I took them over to the Lost Swamp Pond dam, still magnificent even though it is 21 years old, roughly built when my son was born. There I was delighted to see a battle of muskrat poop on the granite rock next to the dam, as well as much clipped
grass
Grass had been pushed up on the dam
and I first credited the beavers, but come to think of it, the muskrats probably did it. So I can't say that I saw a sign of recent beaver activity. Then I took them down to the Upper Second Swamp Pond which is virtually dry. We could easily cross along the dam and then easily got out on the lodge.
I thought I might be able to push the boy in for a tour but there is still water in the main entry channel. The beavers had made it wide and dredged it deep.
There were three other smaller channels into the lodge all very damp, but I could a least get the boy on top of the lodge
and once again could only show him old otter scats. He ached to see an otter but I think accepted the reality that I simply didn't know where the otters were today. As we left the lodge his sharp eyes saw a small frog in the mud. An eight year old boy is always an asset on a hike. We went back to the boat and I took them to Picton Island and around Quarry Point, though we didn't get out since the water was rough. I thought I could see more otter scrapping there.
May 11 we went to our land after lunch. I went down to the Deep Pond empty handed at first. I wanted to see if one of the beavers came out in the afternoon without the splash of aspen branches in its pond. I sat just below the road for a half hour with a full view of the pond. No beaver appeared. Then
I sat on the knoll above the lodge, no beaver. Then I came down next to the lodge and was surprised to see that instead of more aspen logs on the lodge, there were cut honeysuckle branches.
Still no beaver appeared even as I stood next to the lodge. Then I went back and enjoyed the flowers along the ridge behind the lodge. The pink and white trillium has been joined by patches of phlox
The phlox doesn't photograph well when next to white trillium but looks dazzling in a close-up.
That mysterious plant along the road that we've been watching unfold is also back here, a bit more developed but still no flower.
I continued around the pond and stood on the high bank -- still no beaver appeared. So I went up and collected some aspen branches. I deposited them by the dam and then turned to take a photo of the dam, which is well mudded and longer.
Evidently the beavers want to raise this pond even higher. Then I looked up and saw the beaver swimming toward me from the lodge. Then it turned back toward the lodge
I retreated and went up to the road to see if it would check out the aspen. It circled in the pond first, then swam closer to the aspen and slapped its tail. I got the impression it was trying to scare away this mysterious new
arrival, the aspen that it is. It circled back and then swam closer to the aspen, then turned away and swam back to the knoll and into the lodge. This may have not been the beaver I usually see lurking in the afternoon. That beaver just looked at me and seemed oriented to the bank burrow. This beaver was nose up and tail ready, always on the move. I do not know what my experiment proved except that the beavers' appearances seemed geared to the splashing of the aspen. We finished dinner at 7:30 and I hurried down to the ledge overlooking Wildcat Pond hoping to pop in on the beginning of an active evening in the pond, as I got accustomed to in the late winter and early spring. But all I saw in the pond was a female mallard. The mud bar in front of the lodge looked a bit different with a cut branch there with leaves
on it and the logs rearranged a little bit
I walked back down along the pond and pool and saw no major new work, but the Boundary Pool dam had a new log on it, and the leafy branch in that pool had been nibbled a bit. But the wallows were not muddy. Maybe just one beaver is coming up here. Well, I am still confused and not sure how to get to the bottom of it. I'll just have to keep checking. This is a bit of a shock. I had looked forward to a long spring with these beavers.
May 16 we were away a few days and this morning I got to take a tour of the island latrines and ponds with extra eyes. I had no trouble seeing the obvious like the tent caterpillars that have almost stripped most of the shad bushes and cherry trees on the granite plateau along the Antler Trail
(They haven't denied us of all blooms, the berry bushes under those trees are white)
But Ottoleo noticed the porcupine in a tree. I picked the wrong camera. The camcorder would have captured the porcupine backing down the small tree, enduring a moment of indecision at the crook of branch and trunk and then hurrying
down the tree and in among the granite boulders. I expected it to climb and pose. None of the photos I took turned out. Ottoleo also noticed the tailless bullhead I walked by, as well as the feathers of a small bird. I did see the geese and their goslings along the shore of South Bay first.
My excuse, other than old age, is that I had my nose down looking for otter scats, beaver nibbles and piles of muskrat poop. Out at the willow latrine along the north shore of the south cove of the bay, I didn't see any sign of beavers using the lodge itself, but there was a pile of nibbled sticks next to the lodge.
There were nice piles of muskrat poops
but no signs of otters, and no porcupines out there. The water is still high. I didn't see any new wrinkles in the otter latrine along the marsh on the south shore of the north cove, nor did I see anything new at the Old Dock latrine, and I didn't see new scats at the Docking Rock latrine. Then we went up
to Audubon Pond. The beaver have mudded over the drain and seemed to have stemmed the outflow down it. But the pond is still two feet lower than it was.
Then we went back to South Bay and I did see a new, but not fresh scat, at the latrine over the entrance to the bay. The willow there which for years shaded a convenient flat rock along the shore is not going to bloom. Its twigs had swelled in late February and then budded as usual but thanks to the beavers' deep cut in the trunk nothing developed after that but vigorous green shoots erupting out of the lower end of the trunk, below the cut, and on one low branch. Hard to completely kill a willow tree.
Back up at Audubon Pond I got the impression that the beavers had moved back to the lodge in the pond, leaving the now high and dry bank lodge. Not that the lodge in the pond looked that well used, yet.
Meanwhile the beavers seemed to have eased up on their girdling and gnawing big trees. I assume with the pond lower, getting the emerging greens on the bottom is much easier. I couldn't resist making a study of their striking trunk work. Some of the ash trees they've stripped just have occasional glancing gnaws
And so do some of the trees they've half cut.
We heard bullfrogs as we walked along the pond, then saw them hop into the pond as we neared, and finally saw one big one on a log
Not quite warm enough for a good rolling chorus. Likely the two bullfrogs I saw days ago down along South Bay migrated up here. We headed up the ridge to take the high road to Shangri-la Pond. I showed Ottoleo the winter's most
impressive piece of porcupine work, a thin, tall maple that was almost completely stripped of bark. To my surprise a few branches of the tree had full sized green leaves
but judging from the red fungus galloping over most of the leaves, they were none too healthy.
Along the ridge, as we neared Shangri-la Pond, I reminded Ottoleo that the bones of the beaver killed by the falling tree and scavenged by coyotes might be up on this ridge. I had to admit I've never had any luck finding a coyote den. Every suitable looking nook in the rocks always has a carpet of porcupine poop, and never any signs that coyotes bedded on that.
The north canal of Shangri-la Pond is now a beautiful small pond. The muddy look of it doesn't come from dredging but from harvesting greens from under water. However, it was easy to see the swath of girdling they did on a huge trunk next to the pond.
I plan to spend some evenings here so didn't take the complete tour. Looking toward the lodge I could see that another big tree was in the process of being cut,
but the major focus of their activity seems to be the little pond just above the old north canal. They have built up the dam so there is not much of a flow down into the north canal
and their major route to it is overland coming up from the pond below.
Ottoleo was standing in their pathway.
I didn't check above the upper pond to see if they've extended their work in that direction, and instead of checking the dam, I checked to see if the trillium that seemed to sprout out of the trunk of a red oak had survived long enough to go pink. It had.
I didn't see any fresh work below the Second Swamp Pond dam, and the canal they used to get down to that area in the winter is all greened over.
However since the hole forming the canal has been patched down to a trickle I assume the beavers are still here. I saw some possible fresh cutting of some willows along the north shore that I will keep an eye on. It looked like there was a new, but not fresh, otter scat in the latrine along the north shore
and a pathway up through the grass. I only think otters come up here. However judging by some poop we saw by the dam, there is a skunk around. The poop was all dry insect parts.
Then farther up the north shore of the pond we saw what at first looked like the same kind of poop, until we looked closer and saw that some of the insect parts were alive carrion beetles, and there was hair is this "poop" as
well as dried insect parts, and it smelled, not like something digested, but like something dead. My guess is that it is the remains of a shrew, an insectivore, which would explain the dry insect parts.
There was no sign of beaver activity at the Lost Swamp Pond dam, nor any otter scats there. However over on my rock perch above the mossy cove latrine on the opposite shore, there was another otter scat. Not fresh, but still, when an otter poops were I often sit, I think it is a message to spend more time there and get acquainted. Ha.
We heard geese in this big pond but didn't see any goslings. The repairs on the Big Pond dam are some of the best repairs I've seen in years.
There were no drips through the several weak points of this dam, and they seemed to do most of the patching with mud.
We'll see if it survives a downpour. It is not easy to find logs around this dam anymore. Indeed I didn't see much evidence of beavers eating here, just a few stripped sticks at the south end of the dam.
May 17 as we got to the land in the early afternoon, it started to rain. I soon decided that it was better to walk back in the woods while it was raining than after. In both cases I'd get soak but in the former I'd have the pleasure of hearing and feeling the rain. I headed down to the Wildcat Pond dam. All the way I tried to determine if the beavers had been there much since I was last down the trail a week ago. I decided beavers had been there but not as much as earlier in the spring. I saw trees cut that I hadn't noticed before, but not
many. The best sign was that the bigger wallow below the Boundary Pool dam was bright brown again.
Of course vegetation bursting out all over made things look much different as did the rain. When the rain let up, I took photos of familiar things so that I might compare them to old photos. What is remarkable about the Wildcat Pond lodge is that it has so many stripped sticks surrounding the muddy shell of the lodge. Usually the mud is pushed over the sticks. These sticks were pushed up on the lodge after the lodge was made ready for the winter with its mud armor.
The sticks on the mud bar looked a bit different, but certainly not the major rearrangement I was accustomed to seeing in the early spring.
Usually I walk on the west side of the pond, but it is easier to get the dam via the east side. Walking down there I noticed that in the middle of a pile of stripped sticks under a girdled elm trunk there appeared to be a scent mound.
Best sign yet that the beavers still think the pond is important. I wanted to get to the dam to see two things. Have the beavers been working on the dam? and are they going over it? The former was hard to tell because the beavers pack the dam with humus, evidently mud is not available, so it is hard to
distinguish fresh heaves
It is clear that beavers have been going over the dam and back up, even though there is a big log in the middle of the path. There was muddy water and scratched mud. I could almost see the beavers lumbering up and down
And the view below was attractive. I could see what might be a fresh job stripping fallen trunks well down stream (though in the damp old work can look fresh) but more attractive to the beavers are ponds more open to the sunlight.
That's deeper into my neighbor's land and I don't want to go there and call attention to the beavers. Never know how neighbors will regard them. It rained the hardest while I was standing behind the dam. So as I waited for it to let up so I could take some photos. I noticed that the lively flesh color I saw on the birch the beavers have been feasting on is fungus
I also noticed that a good bit of the birch crown is alive and green. Perhaps that was why the beaver climbed up so high in the crown. To get to the greening buds.
Then I noticed that I was seeing flowers that I don't commonly see up in our neck of the woods. First I noticed little white starflower
and then a green flower like a bursting sphere, sarsparila I do believe.
Then I saw a true beauty, a jack in the pulpit
There were about three there. Just as beautiful was the carpet of plants. My eyes could run from the columbine along the mossy rocks over to the jacks-in-the-pulpit.
Going back home, on our land, I saw another spherical flowers, this one more white
and a nice combination of yellow and blue violets.
After dinner I walked down the road and in Val's pastures saw about 35 geese. Two pairs had goslings. Then I camped out beside the road with a view of the Deep Pond. As I fought off the mosquitoes, out in full force there, I first saw two muskrats swimming in and out of the beaver lodge below the knoll. Then I saw the beaver nibbling aspen leaves (Leslie had taken some down before our dinner) in the middle of the pond out toward the high bank. So I couldn't be sure if it swam out of the burrows there or the lodge below the knoll. Then the beaver swam
around the pond, and then went up on the low bank on the east side of the inlet creek and seemed to head up the inlet creek. So I waited to see the other beaver, as the muskrats kept swimming in and out of the lodge, and the catbirds nearby tried to settle down with me in the vicinity. Then I saw a beaver out in the far side of the pond, and this beaver swam directly up the inlet creek. This was a promising development since I could wait for both beavers to swim back and I could see if they went to the burrows or the lodge. An almost full moon was rising so I had a chance to figure this out even if it got late. Then a beaver popped out of the lodge, swam to the dam and then munched along the pond bottom along the near shore. Are there three beavers? Well, thanks to the cold night meeting the remnants of the humid
day, the moon lit the fog, and the mosquitoes. I couldn't see the pond so I headed back to bed listening to the whip-poor-wills' serenade.
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