March 2006

February 27 minus 6 when Leslie got up, but above 10 when we headed off a little before 10am. We crossed South Bay to look for otter slides. At the point in the middle of the bay a mink skirted around the rocks the otters had been around a few days ago, and the mink seemed to gain a hole into the world below the ice.

I back tracked it to the other holes the otters found but the mink seemed to stay on shore along those rocks. Also heading roughly from the point were fox and coyote tracks, side by side, heading off out on the ice. Along the north shore there was more fox and coyote commotion than mink tracks, but one mink showed some indecision as it went out and then right back.

We checked all the otter latrines and only found fox and coyote tracks. The sun bares the moss and grasses here. something to sniff.

We scanned the shores of the islands to the west and saw no signs of otters -- not that we got a very good view.

The porcupine was in the commodious hole at the base of the huge red oak. There was a coyote trail across the middle of Audubon Pond but no other tracks. I usually don't take photos of the mouse tracks, but one coming up from the Audubon Pond outlet creek had its tail dragging.

Then we walked down to the end of the bay and found signs of deer browsing along the north shore, and a fox patrolling the edge of the marsh, and a fox sniffing around the old dock, but no signs of otters. Then I cut over to the peninsula to track the little porcupine that lives over there. It hadn't been to the pines, but evidently had stayed in the small hole of a small tree near to usual work.

I scanned the trees but couldn't see it, and then tried to track it but lost the scent as it merged with the stamping of deer around the crown of a tree that blew down in the recent gale. I could have found the porcupine tracks again, but I had a hunch that it came from the Porcupine Hotel, so I went down to the creek and up it to the Beaver Point pond dam, and didn't see any signs of otters. Then I followed the porcupine trail from the Porcupine Hotel and proved myself wrong. That trail didn't find the trail of the little porcupine. I'll wait for tomorrow's tour of the interior beaver ponds before concluding that the otters left the area I patrol.

In the afternoon we went to the land where tracks were stingy, we even got excited following a weird trail of a blown leaf.

The wind had sculpted the snow nicely along the high bank of the Deep Pond.

We then looped up from the cabin through the turtle and bunny bogs, and the tracking was better in the woods. A porcupine found the lush hemlock at the end of the turtle bog and a rabbit showed its leaping ability beside some dog tracks.

We also found a grouse roost

with two versions of poop.

A lazy day befitting Leslie's 59th.

February 28 another sunny cold day along with a 20 mile an hour wind. We braved the blast crossing South Bay via the peninsula to afford us a little break from the wind. No tracks there. Then we headed up to Meander Pond taking the leeward side of ridges, which quite warmed us up. As we crossed the pond we could see that the beavers had made paths in the snow up to their cut trees which set off calculations about how cold it had been since the snow. It was 10 when it ended on the afternoon of the 25th and rarely got above 20 during the day. It was about that as we approached the beaver paths. Leslie, 50 pounds lighter than me, went closer to beavers' now frozen over hole in the ice. She reported that she could hear a beaver gnawing under the ice. As I went around on the slope north of the pond to get a photo of their paths, I saw bubbles in a small opening in the ice.

Leslie heard the beaver swim away under the ice. I took photos of the two paths, both well worn

and saw bits of red oak bark under the trunk the beavers gnawed.

We waited about 10 minutes for the beaver to reappear. Then we headed off to the other beaver ponds to look for otter slides. We noticed that the beavers took a few limbs off the red maple they cut, not one of their favored foods. They cut a few high branches and reached up to nip some twigs. At the east end of the East Trail Pond dam we saw a mink's trail intersect a porcupine's path.

The former looked for a burrow into the bank and the porcupine, who had crossed over from the woods on the west shore, walking just below the dam, went half way up a log and then over the rocks to its den. There was nothing new on the Second Swamp Pond. A deer nosed behind the dam looking for water. The same scene was etched on the snow behind the Lost Swamp Pond dam.

The wind raked ponds offered no entertainment but the stark contrast of white snow and blue sky. The life today was in the woods. On the flat below the ridge there were grouse tracks, one trail with the wing marks of male displaying,

and other tracks, probably of the a hen, or hens. Then up in the rocks of the gully below the ridge,

four grouse flew up from under and around a rock, one after another, and I didn't see one before it launched up, and, as usual, missed getting a photo of a grouse in flight. I did check the rock

-- only one grouse appeared to walk to it. The others seemed to fly in. Three cocks after one hen? The grouse eached had their own roosting spot, with only one trail between roosts. One up on moss looked most comfortable.

There were several porcupine trails, across the valley and along the shady side of the valley,

but, as usual, I saw no porcupines. At the top of the valley a pileated woodpecker hammed half way up a tall dead tree.

Finally, I saw the trail of a large bird strutting with wings out -- most likely a turkey.

Leslie took the high road home and happened upon what appeared to be the roost of the turkey flock we see so often on the golf course. Good hike, but it appears, the otters are not around.

March 1 There were deer tracks along the edge of the Deep Pond, and then in the thickets on the way to the Third Pond, there were great scoops of rabbit pounding and poop

that befitted animals out and about after lying low. Then the energetic climb of a mink led us into the Third Pond

and in and out of a hole along pond bank that we hadn't noted as a possible burrow.

Then the mink went in and out of the burrow at the end of the pond, then up to the road. On the way to the Teepee Pond, I flushed three grouse from the pines. Then at the end of the pond I saw that a muskrat broke out,

and tried to get into the smaller pool,

but failing, went back to the Teepee Pond hole. A mink trail came out from the beaver lodge

but I think it was just passing through. It also ducked into the rocks behind the lodge,

and at the end of the pond I lost it in a hail of red squirrel tracks. I sawed wood, then, to warm up my toes, collected logs. On the way back to the cabin, I ran into the flock of cedar waxwings.

They favored bushes with berries and an old rotted out tree. They flew off and a bald eagle flew overhead.

March 2 mostly cloudy morning, a bit warmer but still below freezing, and most rare, no wind. I headed off across the golf course, scaring off a few deer. I found a fluffy feather in an old print, admired its delicacy

and then heard a grouse fly off down below from the valley, even before I got near it. Then just as I got in range of actually trying to get a video or photo of this, another grouse flew off from the below the rocks. I gave up trying to get a photo, and as I continued down the valley nothing else stirred. There was another spray of orange under the leaning basswood. I can only think that a porcupine peeing from up in the tree is doing this. There was also much fresh porcupine gnawing to admire, but as usual, no sight of a porcupine. As I crossed the Big Pond, I thought of checking on the beavers the next pond up, but decided instead to go all the way to the active beaver lodge in the pond above the Third Pond, but in a different water shed. But as I crossed the Lost Swamp Pond, I put that project aside as the tracks I saw on the lodge by the dam

turned out to be fresh otter slides. The three otters had come to the dam,

sniffed the burrow at the edge of dam and went around and on the lodge,

apparently without going inside. There were no less than six holes dug into the top of the dam. Two were into the ice,

one opened a hole I know the minks have used, but the rest seemed to be new projects and the otters ripped out much dirt along with the ice and snow.

There was much stamping around some holes, and trails up and down the dam. No scats anywhere to be seen, and no great rush of water going through the dam so I don't think the otters have breached it, yet. Before going down to the Upper Second Swamp Pond, I back tracked the otters on the pond seeing how they checked out all the burrows along the north shore and barreling into one that the mink has been pussyfooting around all winter.

There is no mistaking an otters' impact on a pond. Then I back tracked them across to the bank beaver lodge on the south shore.

Here too they didn't seem to get inside. Then I back tracked along the pond shore, to the west, and saw where they slid down the ridge to get into the pond, a little to the left of the usual otter route up from the Second Swamp Pond.

Before continuing to back track them, I turned back and went down to the Upper Second Swamp Pond. As best I could tell, they came down to the pond via the outlet creek, made a hole,

continued to the lodge, didn't get in,

on to the dam where they did get in.

Then they broke out of another hole behind the dam and went back up to the Lost Swamp Pond. The tracks going back to that pond made a very light impression so I think they may have tiptoed back up to the pond in the coldest part of the morning. I went down to the Second Swamp Pond dam expecting to pick up their tracks heading up pond, but there was no sign of them. So I headed up to the ridge and about 100 yards off the pond picked up their slides. They were no longer following the low ground, they had shifted into high gear and I backtracked them under the pines on the plateau

and up every rocky peak that was in their way.

Sometimes there was one grand slide down a hill,

but usually there were two slides down.

They kept a straight line along this high backbone of the island, though I sometimes I lost their tracks amidst a scurry of deer prints around pines and porcupine tracks around maples. And at one point I noticed a bit of stuttering in the otters' progress,

as if there was something under some pines so high above the fish laden waters that required investigation. As I headed along, my mind was working backwards. I've done this enough so that their climb up the steepest slope on this end of part of the island,

didn't give me pause, and unfortunately due to the poor light I got a poor photo of the hill they conquered.

But where had they come from? The South Bay marsh, or would I back track them to a boat house or another island? They came up the creek from the first pond, affording me a glipse of the marsh

where I think the pups were born back in April. But they didn't come from there. They had skirted the south shore of South Bay,

certainly otter territory, but I had not noticed it as being among the haunts of these otters. They seemed to make a point of checking holes in the ice, especially under willows and other trees,

and perhaps even going in them, but the tracks always led back up the shore.

The west wind and north winds we had recently drifted much snow up on this shore, much of it hard packed, so it was hard to see the tracks. Finally I lost the trail in a small marsh just below the fire pit where the old Thousand Island Park dump had been.

Across the bay from this area are the willows the otters had slid about a few days ago, so it seemed possible that they had crossed over from there and their tracks had been drifted over. But first I walked up on shore, going behind the marsh and saw no tracks there. Then I got down in the marsh and back tracked them to a small hole in the ice.

I stuck my camera down it and from that saw that there was a hole in the ice under the ice.

So perhaps the otters had been under the ice of South Bay utilizing the gallery of air under the ice along the shore and gaining access to the warm waters underneath the ice. But if that was the case, one would expect scats and other signs of otters making themselves at home. So I walked across the pond to see if there were any new slides on the other side of the bay. None. I walked up from the south shore of the bay at a different point and carefully checked for slides coming down from the boat houses, other islands, and open channel of the river, but saw no slides. Later Leslie went out and checked around likely boat houses and saw no slides. With otters, I'm always sheepish about jumping to conclusions but if these otters have not been operating under the ice at the end of South Bay, they at least showed an inordinate curiosity about holes through that ice -- which I've never noticed during colder winters when this ice can get two feet thick. That exploring for holes seems to indicate that this wasn't a case of the mother trying to escape her pups. I've noticed before that before she tried that, she often takes them to the high points of their territory. So there is no contradiction in her showing them holes in the ice and then heading up the highest hill. This is her last lesson and it goes from A to Z, and she has put them in a snug place, the Lost Swamp Pond, and perhaps in the next week or two, I'll see evidence of the separation. I'm in my element, sliding into spring the best way possible, behind the otters. A pileated woodpecker kept flirting with me, but I didn't deign to notice. I did detour to see swans out on the river, swimming with the many ducks. Leslie counted eight of them.

March 3 cold sunny morning with a brutal northwest wind so we didn't head off to check on the otters until around 2pm when the temperature climbed to 20F and the wind lost its sting. Indeed it was pleasant enough for 30 to 40 deer to graze on the golf course, now only patched with snow. One deer was even lying down. By their tracks we could see that the turkeys had been grazing too. As we walked down the valley we were startled to see that a huge pine had snapped at a point about 8 feet off the ground bringing its crown down along the valley.

No animal browsing the needles yet. No grouse in the valley today, but we flushed two as we continued along the flat to the Big Pond. We hurried across the blustery Big Pond and started tracking otters at the Lost Swamp dam. They had not revisited the lodge near the dam, but two otters dashed from behind the dam to the base of the large dead tree, now grey with age, about 15 yards behind the dam, and they went right back to the dam. The dam was leaking and I could see the hole an otter dug below the dam to fashion a breach. When more water drains out that might afford a good photo of the breach.

There were no other tracks behind the dam, and no scats. I walked along the north shore and didn't see any new tracks until I got to a hole in the ice about where one of the old muskrat burrows is. There was dirt around the hole, again no scats,

and then tracks on the bank above the hole. We followed them over the ridge, down to the corner of the Upper Second Swamp Pond

where the mink has been making holes in the ice all winter. The otters found those two holes and opened two of their own, leaving a couple of watery black scats on the apron of one of the holes.

I also saw tracks that looked like they were coming from the Lost Swamp Pond dam.

We should have figured out which way the otters were rotating -- from the dam down to the lower pond then up to the hole along the north shore of the upper pond? But we naturally moved along to see the new slides behind the dam,

and then we noticed slides going over the dam.

Then we saw that the otters swam under the ice for about thirty yards then popped out and before we knew it we were following their three tracks to the auxilliary lodge

and the main lodge below the ridge at the northwest corner of the Second Swamp Pond.

The otters didn't get under the ice at either lodge. We noticed that we saw more strides than slides, and Leslie has noticed that when it is very cold, sliding is not easy.

They continued on to the dam where there was now a hole in the ice but thanks to the hole in the Lost Swamp Pond water had flooded up to the hole to the ice behind the Second Swamp Pond dam.

The otters continued downstream, perhaps riding the crest of the flood they started, though in the main the flood just turned the ice and snow to gray.

They took a rather direct route, with no detours, and not even a feint toward higher ground.

We tracked them all the way to the South Bay cove then lost the trail between the end of the cove and the old dock. There was no snow around the hole going under the dock, so I couldn't be sure if the otters had been there, but there were three piles of grayish, tubular, scale-laced scats there that were not there the last time I checked,

and the scats felt relatively soft considering how cold and dry the day had been.

Leslie walked up along the edge of the marsh, and I checked the shore -- no signs of otters. Fresh snow turns to slush on the shore and then that slush is soaked with water leaking up from the ice when the river water rises and during the cold night it all turns into hard slick ice.

Hard to walk on and dig holes into, even for otters. We even crossed the bay to the hole in the ice I tracked them back to yesterday, and saw no signs of them. Much food for thought. Did the lack of scat around the holes up in the ponds indicate poor fishing there? Did the otters leave simply to let the breach in the dam lower the water levels in the Lost Swamp Pond? Did the mother leave off climbing hills because she wanted to again clearly show the pups how the beaver ponds were connected to the marsh? Are they still in the marsh? All to say, can't wait until tomorrow.

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