April 2006
April 1: Today seems like the beginning of the new year; a bit of rain this morning helped, but renewal certainly doesn't depend on that bit of rain. All the sweat of last year is still thawing deeper in the ground now that all the ice is gone. The lingering clouds helped because they muted the obvious presence of more and stronger light. But it's not the light or the rain. All the new plots are still being hatched in darkness, of the earth, of the water, of the imagination. I headed off to South Bay not sure what I was looking for. At this time of year mammals don't gad about like the birds, especially not the otters. And I don't expect to see six beavers together now that all the ice is gone. Still I know what to expect from the beavers, their measured expansion of their foraging area around the pond, their compulsive grass chewing as they cruise their pond, alone. The mother otter is off having pups, and I shouldn't pry; the year olds are on their own; two year olds must have an urge to reproduce. But what two year olds? I've yet to be sure about a society of otters around here and especially at this time of year even though the confusion of each generation starting a new beginning each in its own way might prompt some congregating even as they disperse. Or congregation aside, with dispersal, as much as they might see less of each other, shouldn't my chances of seeing them increase or at least signs of them increase? And so I walked along the South Bay trail with each succeeding latrine not giving any convincing clues. The buffleheads made me pause though. As they've dispersed in pairs they seem to be lurking everywhere. A lone male caused a brief scuffle, then as they all became aware of me, they all flew off. Then I saw a striking collection of fox poop. I limit myself to chronicling the defacation of otters, but this was hard to ignore.
The foxes have been busy on this end of the island, all winter. Going down to the docking rock, I saw some scratching in the grass on the sloping path where the otters have often scratched and scatted. I didn't see any new scat, but there were two scats on the rock,
black, though relatively dry, and what moisture in them might have been from the waves splashing on the rock.
Still they must be new or I'd have noted them before. The otters simply aren't having juicy scats. Next to the latrine was fresh gnawing on the base of a maple. Hard to tell if it was done by a porcupine or a beaver, probably the former, and a big one, because they teeth marks were big.
I hope for a confirmation of a touring otter at the next latine, the one at what I call the entrance to South Bay. There was nothing on the rock down next to the water, and where I had seen what looked like the scrapings of otter scents mounds, all grass was flat. But there were two black scats that I suspect might be new -- especially since one had a stain looking like a urine stain around it.
So, am I seeing what I expect? Signs of a single otter, and no more signs of group exuberance? Yesterday the temperature climbed into the 70s; today was cloudy and in the 50s, but the nook where I sat under the rocky point of the island was out of the wind and, since it is under the trees, the leaves were still dry despite the morning rain. I plopped myself down for a half hour and nothing but the crossing waves in the bay entertained me. I climbed the point and saw that the beavers had not cut down the tree they were working on over on the Murray Island shore. Then I headed to Audubon Pond, thinking it might be late enough for the beavers to be out. They weren't but they had left their marks and signs all around the pond. There was a nice neat scent mound at the end of a trail of wet leaves brought out from the pond right next to the bank lodge on the western shore of the pond.
A portion of the lodge had mud slapped on it and there were stripped sticks of various sizes bobbing in the water,
but nothing swam out as I stood cataloguing those things. The water in front of the lodge was muddy, but no beaver out in the pond. I expected one to be lurking under the low bridge again, but no. There was fresh work over there too. I continued around the pond and I was surprised to see a beaver scent mound on the way to the bench, above the muskrat burrows. And there were stripped sticks outside the burrow.
Around the recently layed rocks protecting the bench from being undermined by beaver burrows there were freshly stripped logs and branches waiting to be stripped.
There were freshly stripped logs on and around the lodge nearby out in the pond.
In this pond where beavers have not done well recently, I suspected there might just be two beavers, and here I was finding that the colony had spread out into three homes. I saw some bubbles, but they struck me as the mild commotion caused by a touring turtle. Then I saw two muskrats along the eastern shore of the pond. Both looked large and one followed the other as they marked a log. It almost looked like one was climbing on the other but they were just rumping over the same spot on a log. I braced myself for a muskrat fight, but they separated and set to munching grasses. As I filmed them, I heard loud and low humming from the beaver lodge. Focusing on that briefly, I zoomed back to the muskrats and one had disappeared. The other continued to eat, and after I glanced around the pond again, it disappeared. I assumed they swam under the causeway and so expected to see them when I walked down that way. I waited for the beaver, but they grew quiet. By the way I heard the first good chorus of spring peepers coming from the east, and a few snoring leopard frogs. When I walked down the causeway, I didn't see the muskrats, only the pair of geese always there who politely moved aside. The water level in the pond is also higher, so I checked the drain and admired the beavers' patching of that.
In other years the beavers would dot the nearby embankment with scent mounds, but not yet this year. I went home the way I came and nothing had changed.
April 2 sunny day, but cool, in the 40s. Relatively calm on the river so we went out to check the farflung otter latrines. At first Leslie didn't want to go but I reminded her of the buffleheads. We enjoyed them all the way and there was a bunch of them around Picton island, some males more intent on bugging the next bufflehead than avoiding us. No duck is more striking when it flies, with flashing black and white, and they usually stay low, giving the impression that your distubance doesn't put them out much -- it's like they enjoy showing off. The rain gave the scratching in the dirt at the Picton latrines a much different look or something rescratched everything.
I looked for fresh wet scat but saw none and couldn't be sure if the scats I saw were there before -- probably. I should say that foxes have been on this point too, one seemingly marking a claim to a collection of bleached deer bones -- at least the bones had bleached much faster than the poop.
Over at Murray Island there was fresh scat and a bit of new digging in the grass, but not much.
And a scat I saw before had a fresh puddle of brown liquid on it. Again it could easily be the work of one otter, which is, perhaps, what I was expecting to see. We also checked the rock on the south shore of the north cove of South Bay that the otters have favored so much in the past two years. A heron has been there as attested to by two white poops.
And a muskrat, I bet, had left some fresh yellow rhizomes behind.
I saw some muskrat poop on the other side of the rock. Then coming out Leslie saw two rolls of grass on a path up the point of the peninsula. I know the otters had come here when the water level in the bay dried up their other haunts, and I saw old otter scats up the path, but nothing fresh. A muskrat may have balled up the grass, not sure why. I'm hoping the mother otter will raise her pups around here again this year and so perhaps this is an area otters can visit but, save for her, be diffident about marking. I'll keep an eye on it.
We relaxed at the land. I saw muskrat poop on the rock in the midst of the water pouring out of the third pond, and then saw two balls of wet grass on the shore of the Deep Pond. I also saw the cottontail
and a bit more fur of a rabbit. One grass ball was along the inlet,
where, it so happened, that a butterfly struggled nearby.
The other grass ball was near the outlet.
Like to see this baller. Heading down to White Swamp I stared down at the outlet stream from the road, not seeing a woodcock until it flew off. But I could photograph its prints!
As I walked down the creek to White Swamp I could soon tell that the water was backing up, and admired the restored pond behind the dam.
And a snapping turtle swam over and stuck its head out to get a look at me. However, while it is clear the beavers did work on the pond, it still leaks quite a bit
-- not like the beavers are necessarily planning to live behind it. The level of White Swamp seems to be rising,
which is to say I could no longer walk out to the beavers' big scent pond. However, I got far enough to see an incredibly neat otter scent mound crowned with two scats.
I could even get a photo of that scent mound with the beavers' masterpiece of a scent mound in the back ground.
I didn't see any other otter scats. I also saw freshly cut saplings here and there. So both beavers and otters are visiting. I will have to hang out. But the attraction today was the noise from the ducks out in the swamp -- strange sounds from afar -- rails? and then some whinnying in a thicket out in the swamp right below me -- I have no idea what made that. There were peepers and leopard frogs singing out in the swamp, but we could get closer to that on our land. There was a good mixed chorus behind the Third Pond, peepers dominating. And then an incredible din of peepers around the pond at the head of the valley. Later Leslie got close enough to see two peepers, one attacking the other. Up in the turtle bog, the wood frogs cackled, like chickens, Leslie says, and then we went up to see the Blanding's turtles -- Leslie saw male and female two days ago. But the chill kept them in the water (or they have left) Things are happening. The woodfrogs already left several spheres of eggs.
Down at the Bunny Bog we heard even more wood frogs. I sat by the Teepee Pond, but no scorpion bugs or even boatmen today. I'll see if a warm day will bring them to the shore again, or is their special spring business over.
April 3 strange weather day: rain and 40s in the morning, then clearing at 3pm, sunny and temperature above 60; then brisk winds and clouds, quite interesting grey clouds, then rain again a little after six, and a cold drizzle at midnight, temperature back at 40. We went to the land during the sunny break. The frogs were going strong and then as the clouds came over again they got quiet. No sign of Blanding's turtles. The wood frogs were singing in the Turtle bog and then when I got close, they went silent. I still saw two on the surface of the water. One seemed to attack the other; they separated and floated with legs up on the surface. The head of one looked bloated but I couldn't be sure if it was eating something. When I got too close they both dove and swam off. Then I went down to White Swamp -- seeing nothing new at the Deep Pond dam on the way. I took the higher valley which is an easier way to the extensive otter latrine I discovered in the winter. As I approached it I could see a stately scent mound.
Otters do make them this size, but this struck me as a beaver's work.
However, there were fresh otter scats: a squirt of brown in the huge scat pile near the eastern hole,
and then a nice fresh one on a stick about five feet from the western hole. The otters keep scatting further up the little slope here.
I took a close up of the scat because it showed a combination of a tubular black scat interlaced with the brown liquid. Plus the different consistency seems a part of the same heave, not a case of the brown being squirted on top of the black -- all a testament to the rather interesting goings-on in an otter's intestines. I've never proclaimed this before, but I can't think of any animal that has more interesting goings-on. Below the scat, toward the water, there were three tentative piles of leaves.
Is this a case of young otters boning up on making scent mounds, or of young beavers? Since all this happens below a high entangled ridge, I should be able to sit up in seclusion and see what happens here, but this is such a big area of open water, I'll need a bit of luck. I also noticed that the big middle hole in the latrine has the water of the swamp lapping in it just six inches below the ground level -- a convenient way for otters to slip into the water.
I wonder why beavers don't build bank lodges over such holes. I walked along the shore the best I could and there were beaver scent mounds about every ten yards. It was hard to tell how recent some of the bigger ones are, or whether the big ones I recollect seeing before have been added to, but there were areas where there were several bunches of leaves, and I assume those are recent.
At one area, almost at the entrance to a little cove, I saw fresh beaver gnawing,
including a lot of hemlock boughs in the water where the beavers were munching.
No small hemlocks around so they must have collected what had fallen from the big hemlocks a little ways up the slope. In addition there was relatively fresh otter scat about ten feet up the slope, as if the otters were being careful to one up the beavers in this, perhaps, strategic setting, though there seemed to be no place for beavers or otters to den nearby. At the inlet, I couldn't see much that was new, but with the clouds, I got better photos of both the beaver
and otter scent mounds.
As for the ducks, they certainly were out in the swamp, I could see them, mostly mallards and some mergansers, but they were relatively quiet, and the geese were not honking. I did hear the loud clunking calls of either bitterns or rails. I will have to listen to some tapes. The winnying sound I hear in the thickets in the swamp are probably sora rails, which we have seen over the years, but these clunking calls are a little quicker than what I've associated with bitterns before. The clunking call also seems to elicit responses from other thickets, including some whinnying. Curious that birds so impossible to see when they are in their thickets are so loud, but that makes sense. They are loud now because they can't be seen. Leslie saw a garter snake.
April 4 rain stopped and a cold, cloudy, blustery morning, gave way to sun, but still cold -- a north wind. I headed off at 2pm and found the golf course soggy that I tried to stay on ribs of high ground and went up the paved path and went up and over the big rock. There were plenty of ducks on the Big Pond but up pond so I couldn't quite enjoy them and was even surprised as they all flew up as I walked across the dam. The otter scat just below my usual perch had been freshened with a brownish blob
-- no other signs of otters though. The muddy water behind the dam could have been caused by ducks or muskrats. The little patching the beavers did on the dam has been washed away, leaving a generous leak,
but since there is no leak deep in the dam, there is no crisis from the loss of water. I was surprised to see several batches of what looked like duck weed, quite green, clogging parts of the shore.
We did have a brief bout of heat but I shouldn't think enough to grow duck weed. I picked a bit up and it certainly looked like duck weed. I walked around the pond looking for fresh otter scats, saw none, and then decided to check the Upper Big Pond. On the way I paused by what had once been an old beaver lodge. The beavers had taken off some logs for another lodge, muskrats remodelled what remained with grasses, but there was still a pile of logs in front of the lodge out in the pond.
There was a good bit of old otter scat on top of the muskrat lodge. By the spring feeding the pond, the grass is almost green. Upper Big Pond is quite full, brimming and holding such a wall of water without leaking clearly under good repair.
This dam is beginning to look like the Upper Second Swamp Pond dam, a narrow wall of mud. The water had backed up well into the pond
even where the beavers have their lodge. Not only did I see freshly stripped logs around the lodge but also on the south shore just opposite the lodge.
I heard some beavers humming inside the lodge. The beavers seem to have a nice set up here, even managing to get logs when I could not see any likely trees from where I stood. I didn't take my usual path through the tangle of willows and dogwoods over to the Lost Swamp Pond. I walked back down to the surveyor's trail and happened to go under a pine tree where I saw a big blob of flat shiny black poop,
much like the poop that had been puzzling me. This was obviously left by a raccoon. Indeed on the other side of the tree were more typical raccoon poops. So while the scat on the dam near my perch is definitely otter scat, all the puzzling black smeers and blobs were left by raccoons with a bit of diarrhea. The hint of fish part that I saw can easily be explained. Indeed I had seen a raccoon catching shiners in the shallow pools of water as the ice melted, not far from the poop surrounded pine tree. Then immediately after that puzzle was solved, I saw the curious looking ducks that I saw a few days ago in the Big Pond swimming in the Lost Swamp Pond. I got some video and then they took flight and flew over me a couple times as they flew in a big circle entertaining me with both growling and whistling. I think they are American widgeons. I sat under a pine near the pond hoping they would come back. They didn't but I did see a muskrat swimming over to the south shore. I continued around the pond and just when I was about to get the camera out to take a photo of the mossy cove showing more beaver gnawed sticks in the water, something swam off the lodge, dove, and disappeared. Surely a beaver, but I think it had been out of the water, and as it dove its nappy fur at the base of its tail made that tail look more like an otter's tail. But there was absolutely no signs of otters. Then I got the camera out and took that photo.
As I continued around the pond I saw a few tentative beaver scent mounds on the west shore and a better organized one at the foot of the north slope.
As I rounded the pond I could see a pair of geese lounging in the old otter rolling area. They seemed to know I was heading there because they swam off quietly into the pond well before I really gave them a cause for alarm. I didn't lounge where they had been because they left a good deal of poop. Nothing new at the Upper Second Swamp pond. I crossed the Second Swamp Pond dam and saw some beaver nibbling, stalks and sticks,
but not much fresh mud to contain the dam's leaks. Then on my way to South Bay I paused to take a view of the East Swamp Pond which, thanks to the jam of grasses at the dam, has regained half its old stature.
Wood ducks enjoyed the water, but nothing else that I could see. There were no fresh otter scats at the South Bay dock. As I walked around South Bay, I saw some scratched up leaves and grass, and a big turkey poop in the middle.
April 5 I had a chance to check on things at our land and down on the shore of White Swamp. There were fresh scats at the otter latrine but only two piles close together of relatively dry tubular scat.
I wonder if the otter or otters are getting a lot of insect larva. We had rain yesterday and it was not easy telling if the beaver scent mounds were dark because of the rain or because the beaver marked again. Judging from side by side photos from the 3d, it looks like they remarked the scent mound.
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At the inlet there didn't seem to be anything different. Up around the Deep Pond, I saw a garter snake curled up in the cold
-- it was not much above 50. Then when I was cutting down an ironwood on the upper part of the land, I noticed a den into the rocks with a bit of poop outside,
and then smeared on the rocks some white froth that reminded of what otters oftens leave in the late winter and early spring
-- the poop however was not like otter poop, more likely a skunk. We're going away for a few days.
by Bob ArnebeckCheck out my other web pages: otters; beavers; minks; muskrats;porcupines;Leslie's art