May 2006
May 8 I walked down to White Swamp, filing through crowds of trilliums. I walked down the path to the swamp that I fancy that otters blazed and about 10 feet from the water, several bees and flies were hovering over a mound of grass. Sure enough, there was a fresh otter scat.
The beavers have also been visiting this clearing along the bank. There are more stripped sticks on land
and in the water. I'm not sure where they are getting the maple boughs.
The vegetation out in the swamp is still brown. I walked down to the inlet creek. The beavers still haven't cut down the ash they were working on -- it may have reached that dangerous point where beavers prefer to let the wind do the work, but this area is surrounded on three sides by ridges. There appears to be more stripped sticks behind the dam, and it is obvious that a beaver has visited the scent mound thrust out in the swamp. There was a fresh gob of mud.
And here there was some green in the swamp, the leaves of some blue flag iris, I bet.
Back on the island I headed out to the ponds before dinner to enjoy the crystal clear sunshine getting slightly golden as the sun headed down. I went via the meadow behind the golf course and was surprised at how quiet it, and the ridge, were. The birds must have been busy. Even with all-concealing underbrush getting green, I didn't wake any deer up. The otter latrine south of the Big Pond dam looked a little used, with some grass fluffed up, but I couldn't find any scat. I sat on my usual perch and within a minute, a muskrat surfaced about 10 feet behind the dam nibbling grasses with its tail cocked up out of the water.
I watched it dive several times and what it brought up to eat must have been but a morsel, because within ten seconds it was back under water. The muskrat swam back to its lodge in the grasses out in the pond, just before I figured I had best mosey on. There was fresh mud on the dam,
which didn't keep the dam from leaking -- another indication that a young beaver is doing this work. There was also a small scent mound, but nothing on or near the lodge to suggest that a beaver had moved in there. So I assume the beaver repairing the dam still comes down from the pond above. Often when I cross dams I see a shrew dart back into a clump of grass, but this time the large shrew went into such a neat hole under a clump of grass that I sat down and took a photo.
There were two holes into what appeared to be a rather commodious clump,
which I then walked on eliciting no reaction from any shrews that might be inside. As I walked down to the Lost Swamp Pond, I saw a heron fly to and perch on the large dead tree behind the dam. Herons often perch there but today there were three, each on a different branch. Occuring so early in the season, I assumed a fight was in the works, but before I could get a good view, the three herons flew off. One seemed to be in close pursuit of another, and they flew off to the east. One did fly back over the pond, but didn't resume a perch in the tree. No squawking during all of this. A pair of geese made the noise. This appeared to be a childless couple squawking at each other, because there were no other geese nearby, and they didn't honk at me. Then two muskrats appeared. The larger one turned to warn the smaller one away every time it got close. When the larger one swam off, the smaller climbed up on the log the larger one left. I walked around the pond and saw no new scats. Then I walked up to the Upper Second Swamp Pond dam. I planned a leisurely hike, and still think crossing the pond on this dam once again is still a few weeks off. I tipped toed closer to the center of the dam to get a photo of the lodge. The beavers seem to be sticking branches into the top of the lodge.
Then I saw a muskrat swimming to the dam. It climbed up on the dam then promptly got back in the water, swam behind the dam and into the flooded bushes behind the dam. Perhaps it was the the angle I was at sitting below the dam, but the fur on the back of this muskrat's neck seemed ruffed up. And soon enough I heard some splashing back in the bushes. Had it sniffed something amiss at the time, and then gone in high dudgeon into the bushes to put some other muskrat in its place? Then two male wood ducks flew in. They swam back and forth in a curious way. If one was a female I would have said they were courting. When I opened the camera they flew away. One flew up behind the Lost Swamp Pond dam, where I disturbed it again. Last month I worried about this dam, now it is in fine repair.
I went home more or less on the same route I took out, hoping the beaver was out at the Big Pond. No, but I flushed a heron from out of a tree, and a common tern flew around and dove into the pond.
And I flushed two doves by the edge of the dam -- rarely see them in the swamps
May 9 went off to South Bay in the kayak a little before noon, on a still warming day, giving me a pleasant sweat by the time I got to South Bay. Judging from the activity of the fishermen in South Bay, the bullheads are biting. Some springs I see half eaten bullheads in the water, victims of otters or herons. Nothing like that today. I saw two herons, one rewarded me with a prolonged growling squawk as it flew off. There were two common terns working the bay. I saw two yellow warblers, heard orioles and flushed a green heron. None of the few geese there had goslings, and I saw a few male mallards. I disturbed one wood deck family. They tried to hide in the trees, so I think they have hatchlings out or almost out. Having seen a beaver at the end of the south cove, I expected to see a bit of beaver work along the shores down there, but I also saw gnawing on the willow at the end of the cove. I should check to see if the beaver has gone up into the old beaver ponds just up the stream. I watched beavers there 11 years ago. On still warm days like this I am used to seeing the water surface teeming with insects, but none today. I saw a blue darner. Cruising over the shallow parts, about 6 inches deep, I set the grasses and algae to bubbling, I think from the tiniest of fry. I got a glimpse of one. In the north cove, I cruised over large schools of minnows, darting too fast and alertly for me to net. They had big heads and evidently brains enough to survive, me at least. Of course, I tried to scan the edges of the marsh with an otter's eye and I must say there were water-filled channels into the dead cattails. So if the otter is comfortable in 6 inches of water, then this marsh might still be attractive for giving the pups their first swimming lessons. While the fishermen were in deeper water getting bullheads, I caused a number of eruptions in the mud of the shallows as bullheads dug for cover. So the otters will find something to eat.
We went to the land for dinner and as an appetizer I went up to the Turtle Bog to see if I could see any caddisfly larva. I leaned down on my favorite mossy nook and had enough sunlight illuminating the water but I didn't see any conglomerations of spruce needles crawling along the bottom. More activity on the surface and just above the water -- mosquitoes getting ready to pounce. I walked down to the Bunny Bog which is rather low. I walked around it enjoying the flowers and ferns. There was a good spread of goldenthreads but for a photo a solitary blossom actually looming over violet leaves looked best
There was also barren strawberry
and some of the ferns were massed like a forest
and others gave the impression that instead of growing, they were curling up, clutching each other for comfort and dissolving in a haze
After dinner I headed for White Swamp. I checked the Deep Pond first and scared the beaver off the dam and into the pond. I assume this is the beaver that was at the Third Pond -- same size and demeanor. It didn't slap its tail. Down at White Swamp I sat up on the ridge above the beaver scent mound and otter latrine. I didn't go down to check for fresh scat or work in order to keep my odor away from where I hoped the animals to come. To make the story of a pleasant stakeout short, nothing visited the area, but one muskrat patrolled offshore, diving now and then into the dark waters. Strange how nothing seems to growing out in the swamp, but the muskrat didn't come ashore where there was plenty of green. I heard a bittern, the snipe apparently have moved into the woods. Geese sounded off now and then, ducks were quiet. The curious thing about sitting on the ridge facing the huge swamp is that a splash 500 meters away can sound like it is right in front of me. Going back in the dark, I saw a small porcupine up on the ridge, climbing up a tree. I heard one woodcock peenting in the woods as I walked back up to our land. Along the ridge, the peepers seemed to come from everywhere. At the Third Pond they were more concentrated. Leslie didn't see the beaver there, so it probably moved down to the Deep Pond.
May 10 I set boards up to try to get an idea of how far wrong we are as we set the foundation of our little house.
When I went to take them down, two crane flies were using one board as their marriage bed.
I took that as a good sign and busied myself with another corner post. When I went over to the Third Pond, a muskrat scooted out of the grass on the bank, jumped into the pond, but didn't dive right away. It took a look at me first. The water level in this pond continues to drop, which must have frustrated the beaver who did a nice job raising the dam higher. On my way to the Deep Pond, I paused to take a photo of the apple blossoms.
It didn't take me long to see the beaver. It was over on the shady knoll, actually climbing higher into it, so I didn't think it saw me.
It was too shady to get a good photo or video so I'm not sure if it was eating. One beaver that stayed here five years ago spent most of the day sleeping up on that knoll. As I walked around the pond, checking on what the beaver might have been up to, it noticed me and went into the pond. To my great joy, since my attempt at repairing it was in vain, the beaver packed some mud on the dam and stopped the leak.
When I walked along the bank I couldn't see the hole that the beaver dug out high on the bank, but from the west side of the dam it was easy to see, and the beaver was drifting out in the pond.
I didn't watch for long. I'd like it to feel comfortable as long as possible and work on the dam more.
When I got home I hurried off in the boat to check the Picton Island latrine. We are going away for five days, and that is where the otters have been most active. I thought I saw a loon off Goose Island, but it proved to be a common merganser. And I saw a cormorant fishing out on Granite Slate shoal. As I eased up on the throttle approaching Picton, I saw a scent mound low on the huge rock they have been digging on that is the otter equivalent of a light house, black though it was.
It was huge, a good eight inches high, and solid dirt. I docked and hurried over to marvel at it. An otter dug through the pine litter and got to the layer of dirt covering the rock.
There was no scat near it. I found one on a tuft of grass about 10 yards away,
but given the history of what has been going on here, an otter must have done. The last time I was here I noticed the otters were scating in the grass to the west of the rock, which, was their principal latrine here last year. Now they went further west and tore up a good bit of grass and moss
and left several scats.
None were wet, but we have had very low humidity and much sun, and today, a dry east wind. The grass ripping here seemed so extensive that I think that gang of four males which I claim enjoy these environs must have paid a visit. As my eyes raked the rocks for scats, I had to pause over a pale corydalis.
Over at the point, there was more digging higher up above the swinging rope tree. Two scats, a bit fresher, in the shade. But not much activity elsewhere, so one otter probably scampered up this height.
As I left, I let the east wind blow me down the point so that I could get a photo with the latest latrine in the foreground and the latrines on the point behind the pines looming in the background.
I docked the boat below the latrine above the entrance to South Bay, and in the green grass, getting about six inches long in places, I didn't see any scats. Though the east wind kicked up a chop I docked at the point in South Bay, that I dicovered the otters had been using, but there was nothing new there. So it seems, Picton is the place where otters go to roll and make their presence known. Of course, at this time of year mother otters don't advertise their where about. So when I come back, I'll spend some dawns around Picton Point, with an eye out for the marsh in South Bay, where pups might begin learning the ways of the world.
May 16 We left on the 11th to fetch Ottoleo from college, and returned on the 15th. We missed a couple inches of rain, and this morning, while the air was unstable, meaning the clouds were grand, the sun was out. I had time for a quick morning hike and headed, as I usually do when I've been away for a few days, to the South Bay trail. As I approached the short causeway over the creek coming down from the Big Pond, I saw the dark beacon of an otter scent mound.
It appeared to have older scat and some that were quite fresh.
The fresher scat was quite tubular, and for over a year now I've been seeing a good many like this.
Last year an otter began making scent mounds here a bit earlier. By May 4 there were nine piles of grass along this short section of the trail. As I continued along the trail, I paused to appreciate a snail on a log.
There were no scats on the New Pond knoll, nor above the old dock at the end of South Bay, nor at the willow latrine otters used during the winter. I did see a cormorant fishing in the shallower part of the bay, which is a rare sighting. And there were a couple of herons moving about as I walked up the trail. My way to the docking rock was blocked by a small tree cut by a beaver.
The bark looked like a shadbush, but I noticed that while the tree was alive, it had scarcely formed a bud. I didn't see any of the bark stripped nor twigs nipped. I got the impression that something other than the beaver had been up on this shore, but I couldn't be sure if I had seen two piles of grass on the edge of the embankment had been there before. They prompted to bend lower looking for otter scats, but I didn't see any. As I continued up the trail, I noticed that a beaver had stripped a bit of bark off a large standing ash
-- and when I say stripped, I mean just that, this wasn't a case of gnawing. Across the trail, a small ash had been cut. Be curious to see how a beaver shops in an area like this, where most of the trees are large. As I approached the latrine above the entrance to South Bay, I expected the long green grass to make it more difficult to find scats, but then looking at the grass, I thought I could better see where an otter had been,
and sure enough, amidst the mussiness was a new otter scent mound.
There was a fresh and curious scat too, showing fish parts, I assumed, that had been hurried through an otter's digestive track.
There were several other scats about, but while some were certainly new to me, they were interspersed among scats that I had seen before. I didn't see any scats on the rocks just up from the water. Clearly otters have been coming here to mark, not to find a cozy spot to eat what fish they might catch in South Bay. Then I headed up to Audubon Pond and while I was deciding that the mud marks on the west end of the embankment were made by beavers,
a muskrat swam from the west bank back to the burrows in the embankment. The pond is higher than I have ever seen it, and it seems a beaver is taking advantage of that to live in the auxilliary lodge on the west bank of the pond. And there was a fresh trail of mud and leaves coming out of the water and to the top of the rather low lodge.
Not sure what to make of that -- more likely showing the flag, so to speak, rather than shoring up the low lying lodge. As I continued around the pond I saw that the two ash they had cut but that were left high and dry had not been stripped or gnawed.
However the three of four ash cut along the flooded portion of the north shore had attracted more attention.
I sat out on the bench where the water was lapping up to my feet. I had time for a five minute rest, then just when I was about to move on, a beaver surfaced outside the lodge in the pond and promptly slapped it tail. It headed out toward the middle of the pond, and then weaved its way back to me
slapping its tail now and then.
This beaver certainly seems like the little beaver we saw here about four years ago whom some kids named Slapper. I headed off after taking a few photos. I noticed that when the beaver started splashing, the pair of geese near the long causeway started honking. As I continued around the pond, I startled a deer, that didn't run far affording me an opportunity to study its still dingy coat.
No sign of spring there. When I came up to the pond, I noticed a smaller bird, probably a redwinged blackbird chasing a hawk. As I walked down Shortcut Trail, the chase ended in the crown of a tall dead tree. The hawk suffered the blackbird to stay on a higher limb as they rested. Then in the woods, I stopped to listen to the chick-burr of a scarlet tanager, but I couldn't see it. The birds were quite molodious with grosbeaks, orioles, robins and tanagers fluting pleasantly and yellow warblers and wrens a bit more insistent. I went back to South Bay, headed up to the Lost Swamp Pond, a brief visit to check for otter scats. A pileated woodpecker working on a dead log on the ground flitted away as I approached. I saw something dive in the water, suspected a muskrat, and soon saw it surfacing and nibbling away on top of a floating log. There were no new otter scats. I didn't check any other latrines. Walking below the Big Pond dam I was struck by the difference between the two patch jobs on the two chief weak points of the dam. In one, molded grass and a chaste array of mud held back the water.
In the other, mud was piled higher, as if two different beavers worked on the dam, which is unlikely.
I sat briefly on my perch on the south end of the dam, watching a gull skimming things to eat off the surface of the pond and wondering if a tern might appear. As I left, ten yards along the trail, I saw a small beaver stripped stick,
then a few yards further on I saw a scent mound,
with older typical otter scats.
Right next to it was large soft bolus
of what appeared to be leaves and insect parts. In a dry year in late August, I might convince myself that an otter left this, but I can't imagine an otter gobbing down that many dead leaves.
Last year I noticed scent mounds up here, and that year otters were more active in South Bay than I had grown accustomed to, so next trip I'll have to check all the South Bay latrines and soon make a dawn patrol in or along the Bay.
May 18 finally got to the land this morning and were delighted to hear the rose breasted grosbeak singing in the oaks above where we are working. I scouted the ponds to see what the beaver was up to. Something was in the Third Pond, muskrat I suspect. Leslie thinks more willow have been taken and the beaver has been coming back up. I walked around the Deep Pond. The pond is muddy, which could be from the beaver digging up vegetation, and I did see a few old lily fronds floating in the water. But on one rock it looked like muskrats were making a major statement.
I only saw one little arrangement of nibbled sticks,
just down from the little pool near the pond. More of the willows there had been trimmed. And there doesn't seem to be much work on the dam, which still leaks a bit.
Then as I stood looking at the pond, I saw the beaver's head just below the high bank -- the opposite shore from where I was standing. The beaver dove and then surfaced below the bank and climbed up into the shady thicket formed by some honeysuckle growing on the bank.
This was a few feet from the hole I thought the beaver had dug high in the bank. I wonder if it had been sleeping there when I walked around the pond? As for the flowers, as I went up and down the shady knoll, I saw the phlox taking over from the trillium
and tugging on strands of the honeysuckle bush by the edge of the pond was an energetic vireo.
Finally, walking on the dirt road, I got a good photo of the eastern swallowtail that I had seen before -- first time I've noticed them around here.
Check out my other web pages: otters; beavers; minks; muskrats;porcupines;Leslie's art