A Hole in the Ice: Part Two
By Bob Arnebeck
A week of snowy and cold weather made it impossible to take the camcorder on my tours of the pond. I knew the beavers continued to come out of the hole because each visit revealed a new array of twigs and branches outside the small hole. I usually poked a stick down the hole to see if the ice below it was still open. It was, and full of leftovers.
After each snowfall the beavers made a fresh trail up into the woods. When there was a pulse of warm weather, I found a new array of logs about the larger pool below. But I seldom saw the open water, let alone a beaver floating in it.
January 24 Despite the warm temperature the beaver pool was frozen over but it had been open.
Indeed there were raccoon tracks going to it and coyote tracks. The beavers had left a nice little log out on the trail which made me wonder: why do the beavers eat away from the pond and why do they leave their half stripped logs out in the snow? I could see freshly stripped sticks in the open ground hole so a lot of eating is still done down there. There was beaver scat on the frozen-over pool and it looked like the coyote and raccoons had pawed through that.
The coyote did some scraping on the ice. Why? I couldn't fathom.
Beavers are among the most fastidious animals and they don't like their excrement left in their way, neither in their lodges nor on their trails. I had seen it before on the ice outside a lodge and on a winter trail when water levels below the pond ice were very low. Yet the Big Pond seemed to be holding its water well. I formed an idea that the beavers tried to stay close to the hole. I had yet to see them in the woods. I knew coyotes were visiting the pond, too. Raised on the dramatic, predator-ridden nature shows on TV, I now pictured a colony careful for its safety, if not under siege, desperate to maintain its opening out to winter food, under great stress and thus scatting on the ice!
Then we had a spell of good weather, sunny and blue skies. The change seemed to be as liberating for the beavers as it was for humans. I took two families interested in otters out to see their winter slides. The route out went past the beaver hole. As we came along the woods down my winter trail, a beaver was disproving all my notions about a cowering colony under great stress.
January 28 A beaver was out in the woods and some of us saw it hurrying back to its hole as we approached. There was a log left on the trail and a branch with a few bites on it, left just outside the hole.
I'm amazed at how far they go into the woods, and up where they were working there are many small stripped sticks so it appears they spend sometime up there nibbling away and don't just hurry things back into the hole.
It soon became apparent that the beavers were becoming bolder, almost heedless, as they enjoyed the mid-winter sun.
January 29 had easy going down to the Big Pond. Once again as I approached I could see a beaver about the hole. As I got closer it disappeared and then I noticed a beaver on the path to the woods just off to my left. It began going down toward the hole fairly fast, then stopped, sniffed the air again, turned and went back up the hill. It began nibbling on something just off to my left. I stood still and watched. Then it went up the hill and appeared to be breaking a new trail as it went over the rock there. I could just see it working on a mostly downed tree. I waited hoping to see it drag a branch down to the hole, but when it moved it went further back into the woods. I could just see it gnawing a downed log. This was not a big beaver but I can't say it was one of the small ones I've seen here. Meanwhile, a beaver came out of the hole and in quick order brought a stick down into the hole. As I skied by I didn't see or hear anything. The beaver in the woods kept at its business. Once again I found coyote tracks on the pond.
This was a warming day with a brisk wind and so would seem to be a bad day for a beaver to venture too far from safety. I really don't think this a heedlessness borne of desperation. These beavers have been harvesting for about a month, and the beaver that was out seemed to have that pick-and-choose demeanor that beavers get when they harvest during flush times, not the steady concentrated gnawing of the cold and hungry beaver
January 31 Today I went out mid-afternoon, on skis and with the camcorder, with the intention of getting shots of beavers at the Big Pond and Beaver Point Pond, and checking on the otters in between. It wasn't snowing when I left the house but by the time I got to the pond it was snowing again. The beaver was out, up at the end of the trail in the woods, but it smelled me before I saw it, and hurried by me, down to the hole. I didn't have the camera out.
February 1 I brought my camera again but this time the beaver was not out. Perhaps they were resting and for good reason, judging by the fresh trails they had been very active.
Apart from the usual trail up into the woods there was a branch that went off to the west further up the hill. And then near the hole there were three trails off into the low bush off to the east -- two before the end of the snow and one fresh. Plus Leslie found another hole about ten yards off to the east of the other one; freshly opened with a freshly stripped stick floating in it.
Finally, I got a photo of what was becoming a frequent occurrence -- a beaver out in the mid-day sun.
February 5 As I came down to the pond I saw the beaver coming up the trail, passing in front of me and going farther up into the woods. Today the wind was in my favor. For the first time there were a lot of birds in the woods. A blue jay flew over me giving the alarm call. Still the beaver went about its business which was getting a branch and dragging it down to the hole. I tried to get closer but for most of the route there were many trees and branches between me and the beaver
I decided to stay up along the trail but after three minutes with no sign of the beaver coming back, I decided to move on. When I was right at the beaver hole, I saw a little furry thing in their pool - a small beaver "knee deep" in melt water nibbling away.
As it did a larger beaver kept half emerging, its back rolling in the water as it grabbed a stick and brought it down. There was mewing but I wasn't sure which beaver was doing that. After checking on the other ponds, I headed back the way I came. As I came to the Big Pond I saw the beaver across the way bringing down another stick. I crossed to position myself for its return. The beaver came back out of its hole and began going back up the hill for another stick. I tried to follow as best I could and also get in a position to get a good photo. But the beaver stopped at the first crest of the hill and I could see that it smelled a rat. So I walked toward it. To get back to the hole it had to walk past me. I made some reassuring noises and as it approached it did so very gingerly. But once it was by me, it broke into a trot and then into a fast hop. Its back feet pounding like a rabbit's or a kangaroo's.
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An interesting outting.
Beavers commonly mark their territory with scent mounds to communicate with other beavers. But the middle of winter would seem to be a time that could be dispensed with since it was not a good time for any beaver to be straying from pond by pond. But these beavers simply were not acting like it was winter.
February 7 At the Big Pond, the beavers had been out but no sight of them as we walked down to the pond. There was a scent mark on the edge of their frozen over open area.
We had a little warm spell, enough to melt the snow on the ponds but not melt much of the ice. Then it got cold again and we had fresh snow. The thaw and refreeze didn't seem to change the beavers' foraging. It did caused the otters to go further afield. And one used the hole the beavers had made in the bank next to the pond. It certainly didn't stay long. This was beaver territory. In cold weather and warmer weather, the beavers held on to their gains: the hole in the ice and the trails into the woods near the pond shore.
February 16 As I approached the Big Pond I could see that the beavers had been out. We had a cold night so I expected the beaver holes to be frozen over. I went to the old one and zoomed my camera in to get a shot of the ice. What I saw looked suspiciously like a beaver's nose,
but I thought it might be a weird way the ice froze. I moved my foot and the beaver ducked down into the water. No fresh otter activity there.
February 18 As I came down to the Big Pond who should be out and a hundred yards from the pond way up on its trail but the beaver. It was tugging at a branch then gnawing it a bit to get it untangled
-- as it was doing that a bald eagle flew over us, fairly low. The beaver got the branch loose at one point by lunging off its hind legs and tail;
and then it would get in front and pull the branch. It stopped at one point to regather the branch - actually two branches in its mouth, another reason for big teeth,
then it took the branch quickly down the hill. I expected it to be out when I got there but while the branch was sticking out of the hole,
the beaver was long gone.
February 19 I didn't see the Big Pond beaver today but it has being doing some heavy lumbering. There were two thicker logs by the hole - say 4 to 5 inches in diameter. The beavers have branched off more to the southeast and gotten out some good size (up to 8 inches in diameter) ash.
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One beaver now has a long circuit into the woods from the hole, to these new trees, then further up and over to where I saw a beaver yesterday
February 20 The beavers have certainly picked up their lumbering; I saw even more trees down and more at the hole. The snow on the ponds is gone down to a thin layer of slush on the ice.
During the winter I kept an eye on several other ponds, and eventually the beavers in all the shallower ponds finally broke out from under the ice and went in search of food. At a pond in a neighboring watershed, that I call Beaver Point Pond, the beavers had a small hole below one of their dams open for about a month. With this latest thaw a huge hole opened in the ice above the dam. I got some good photos.
Down at Beaver Point dam there were big changes. The ice collapsed behind the dam and around the lodge so that I could see a good bit of open water revealed by the foot thick ice now angled up. I saw something brown in the water, saw it move, saw it come back and climb out. It was a beaver. The wind was crossing between us and it evidently just couldn't quite sense what or who I was. It stood on the ice almost five minutes before plunging back in. Meanwhile I was hearing gnawing coming from the dam. Then a beaver nose poked out of the old hole in the ice at the dam. Then the beaver came out in the pool now open just under the large bottom ice skirt around the lodge.
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This beaver knew something was out there and so could never quite bring itself to get back about business, but never panicked either. Much new work on the downed trees below the dam. The ash is being segmented into five foot logs, and the hickory continues to diminish.
Some winters begin to end in late February, but not this year. I would be observing the hole in the ice for another several weeks.
Go to Part Three: holept3.html
