A Hole in the Ice: Part Three
In my seven winters on Wellesley Island, there had always been a complete thawing of snow and much ice in January or February. Not this year. In some places the only change all winter was the depth of the snow. But down at the hole, there was always a fresh look.
February 26 No beavers were out at the Big Pond but there was almost a wood chip path down to the hole.
When I looked in I could see the water rocking.
February 28 Down at the Big Pond, I could see that the beavers had been out since there were fresh drag marks in the snow. Only one large log out of the hole and it looked like they had opened up some ice below the hole.
March 2 Going over to the Big Pond, I soon saw that a beaver was out at the hole, as I approached it sniffed me and dove into the hole. Quite a bit of lumber cleaned up outside the hole, only a few eight inch chunks left.
Once again I took a group, teenagers this time, out to see the beavers and otters, and once again the beavers didn't fail me. None were out of the hole but
March 3 Down at the pond, at first it seemed like the beavers weren't about and hadn't been out. I sent the kids down to the hole, hoping they'd see the beaver swim off. As they approached a branch in the hole started moving -- the beaver was taking it down! As they went up to the hole they saw a beaver inside.
I didn't get a photo of what they saw, but the next day I saw the same thing, and, as usual, much more:
March 4 since snow was forecast for tonight I decided to check the ponds this afternoon. Of course I went my usual route and I noticed that the beavers had crossed the path we made yesterday and had dragged some limbs out. A thick maple log was ten yards off the trail. So I had my eyes out for beavers. Saw none and then eased down to the hole. Well, I've been making a big deal lately of the poor eyesight of beavers so the blinking eye of the beaver staring out at me from the hole took on added significance. There was another beaver behind that one -- both half out of the water.
I wished those beavers well and snuck away, trying to save them an unwanted plunge into the water. I crossed the ice walking toward the beaver lodge on the other side of the pond, always checking to hear if there was some life in it even though it had been quiet there for over a month. Then I saw an animal going up a path from the lodge into the bush. At first I thought it must be a raccoon but then I saw that it was a beaver!
It didn't seem to notice me even when I walked around the lodge trying to see where it may have come out. I didn't see a hole. Meanwhile, the beaver went beyond my sight into the bush. I began to wonder if this beaver might have crossed the ice, might have been leaving its home on the other side! Then I saw that it was collecting a few small branches and it turned to come back down. Then when it was still ten yards or so from the pond ice, it, and the few little branches it was carrying, disappeared. I walked up to where I thought it had been and I saw no hole there.
Now the wind was pretty strong, and while I wasn't in the evocative desert, a snowy pond can give a hint of that. And it was perhaps deserved for my skeptical soul that on my first run in with a Spirit Beaver, the beaver paid me no heed! Then I found the drag marks of the beaver's sticks and traced them to a neat little hole into the ground just at the edge of the ice.
The beavers did on the north shore what they had done on the south, dug a hole out of the pond through the ground.
The storm came, as predicted, and as is often the case I went out before the storm had really stopped. I almost turned back, sure I would see nothing, but....
March 6 We went out this morning just as the snow stopped, into a howling wind, on skis, which wasn't such a good idea because it was too warm and the wet snow constantly stuck to the skis. And the drifting was so bad that I couldn't follow my old trail. Still, as we came down to the Big Pond, the beaver was out, dragging a branch down to the hole. Judging from its tracks, it had just come out of its hole. The hole on the other side of the pond had not been used.
Needless to say in the calm sunny days that followed, the beavers were quite active.
March 7 As I approached the hole I saw a little branch sticking out, quivering. When I got up to the hole, I didn't see the beaver. Of course there were more trails into the woods; now the beavers worked the area southeast of their hole instead of southwest. At the little rock ridge I saw that the porcupine had been out. When I got on top of the little ridge I heard some gnawing. Off to my left, a beaver had just about cut through a standing tree three or four inches thick. Of course I had to stay and watch. How thoroughly and carefully the beaver embraced this tree gnawing around and around the thinning strand of what little heart wood a little tree, probably a maple, might have. The tree tipped, a little into another tree, yet the beaver continued obviously hoping a clean cut would bring the tree down. Now as it gnawed it also pushed against the tree. It continued to gnaw around and around. When the tree was finally cut in two, the beaver lunged forward with it, as it had been pushing hard against it.
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The tree still did not fall, but was hung up at about a 70 degree angle. From looking at the video it seemed the beaver walked forward to where the tree should be on the ground, didn't feel it, and then went back and reached up and felt it. The beaver stretched itself up like it was going to begin gnawing a two or three foot segment, and then backed off, and then moved off, deeper into the woods, sniffing trees and branches and plodding along. It even went a little up the high ridge. I thought it was going to make a great circle around me, but then it turned back. Soon enough it paused by some small branches and bushes and I could see it eating a nice stick. Then it grabbed a smallish branch and began dragging it toward the pond a good hundred yards away.
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It looked like there were a hundred likely branches, bushes and saplings it could harvest on its way to the pond, but it kept dragging this particular branch. It seemed it had to take back something to the lodge, that this struck it as being tasty and so.... Well, now it was late, and my feet were wet. So I didn't wait until the beaver got back to the hole, I couldn't see the hole anyway, and walked home.
March 8 Up at the beaver pool, they had opened a little hole in the pool area and there were more logs by the ground hole. As I approached that a beaver swam away. They had also used the trail I made yesterday to drag some branches out. No beavers up working however. I went over to see the tree they felled and saw that it was a red oak.
March 10 . The warmth evidently kept the Big Pond beavers busy. Their pool in the ice had been all open and then froze over. There were sticks in the ground hole and a fresh trail, but no signs of beavers, as if weariness had finally over taken them and they were all getting some sleep. They had also been out of the ground hole on the other side. At this hole they never seem to leave the sticks outside the hole, while on the other side there is always litter around the hole
March 11 The temperature was above freezing and by that time the grass on the golf course was showing here and there and many deer were taking advantage. As I came down to the Big Pond a beaver was dragging a goodsize log down to the hole. I creapt up and got some good views of it as it cut off a few feet of the log
and took it down the hole, with a nice tail flap in the breeze as it did so. I went closer and saw that the pool was open. I got too close. When another beaver surfaced it sensed me and dove right back in. Then I heard quite a bit of beaver conversation down in the hole. But the one beaver kept chewing, until I crossed past the hole. Then it swam back to the lodge in a huff. Then like that a brief and violent snow squall hit.
March 14 Down at the Big Pond, I saw more beaver work. Just on the path I take in there was a small red oak down, and a branch almost completely stripped. What determines if they eat where the tree falls or whether that take it back to the lodge? Down at the holes, the big log of a few days ago had been segmented and removed. In the ground and in the pool -- half frozen, were little branches. A great clogging of little stripped sticks in the pool
and especially in the hole. Then as I headed down to the lodge, I saw beaver tracks going across the pond in the same direction. The beaver crossed the pond and walked up to and around the lodge, then it walked over to the hole in the ground that the beavers had been using and evidently closed the hole!
Then it walked back across the pond. This is perplexing. Since I had never seen a beaver try to patch a hole in the dam during the winter and early spring, I had decided they had an aversion to working with mud until it got warmer. Here was mud work on a winter's day. Plus the beaver evidently was looking for a hole, checking around the lodge first and then going to the hole. Of course, I could be misinterpreting the tracks. But why would it close the hole? I'll see if it is dug out again. Could this be a spat between beavers? protection against an attack? Perhaps there is no barrier of water between the hole and the lodge and thus a land animal could get in the lodge via the hole. Raccoons poke into holes
March 16 As I approached the Big Pond looking for the beavers, a big bird flew off one of the trees above me. I think it was an immature eagle. I heard later that the vultures were back but this bird acted more like an eagle, flying evenly with none of that cloying regard for the land that vultures have. The beavers had been collecting wood on several trails but none were out then. They had widened their pool and even heaved some mud up on the ice -- three dollops.
(More signs of late winter mud manipulation! so why can't they patch the dams?)
Down at the lodge I didn't hear any mewing. I knew a beaver had been about because the closed hole was open
and at least one beaver had been out. Could this hole closing hole opening drama have anything to do with the mud being pushed up on the ice? Are there two families of beavers in the pond?
March 18 sunny day, almost 40 degrees. I headed out to the ponds at about 3 pm, angling to enjoy the golden light of sunset with the beavers. The snow is receding and retreating more than melting, and I should add thinning. Easy to cross the golf course now, and in the woods, only a rare step into the deep snow. As usual when I got down to the Big Pond I could see that the beavers had been out, even scraped over my footsteps from two days ago. The beavers were not to be seen, but, as often happens, when I approached the hole I saw a branch sticking out of it wiggle. Though the pond was fully open, it sounded like two beavers were in the hole; one gnawing and the other uhhing. I decided to wait until one came out. The branch they were devouring was not large and they seemed to be pulling it down quickly enough. Then there was a great ripple in the pool and I worried that a beaver was leaving. Instead it surfaced in the pool, coming up with stripped sticks on its back. It shook those off, then climbed out of the water. It took its best shot at scenting me, wipings its nose and ears. One eye was right on me, and I really think it knew I was there but tolerated me. It even approached me and then nibbled some twigs before it grabbed a larger branch and took it into the hole.
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I walked around the hole, and as far as I can tell, didn't disturb the beavers.
March 20 Down at the Big Pond, I could see that the beavers had been out, but not that morning. Red wing black birds were singing all around the pond. The ice was frozen over in the hole.
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Perhaps the beavers now count on the warmth of the day to thaw the ice. Less need for vigilence. There was some beaver scat on the ice. Nothing new at the lodge: no mewing and the hole still opened.
Though water was still freezing up most nights, winter was making its slow exit. The snow was retreating, the ice receding. The beavers enlarged their hole in the ice, but the logic of the winter continued. It made little sense to open a hole or take advantage of a hole somewhere else. Even the hole on the other side of the pond by lodge seemed unused. However, one day a beaver did go over there and walked around the lodge. I decided they were anxious to move back into that roomier lodge. I remember the first year I watched beavers here. As the winter of 94-95 ended I went out to a pond in mid March, careful to go at night. And in the dim light I saw five beavers hunched over the ice nibbling. I was still watching beavers by the book, so to speak. Over the years I began to realize that in March, beavers came out at all hours. It didn't even cross my mind to go down to the hole at dusk, or at night. I saw quite enough in the light of mid-day.
March 25 When I got to my usual spot above the Big Pond, I paused to look for beavers. And there was one not far from me, actually still, in a stretched out pose, perhaps a kind of playing possum.
When I flinched, it began to move and in a deliberate fashion, not pausing for a stick. It took a round about way down to the pond. By the time I got to the hole, and I didn't hurry, it was gone.
As I got close to the beaver hole I noticed that a little beaver was up. Less than half the size of the other beaver. It saw me at the same time, moved a little, then hopped like a bunny down into the hole, tail flapping in the breeze!
March 27 just below freezing with a good wind and iffy sunshine. The one advantage was firm snow to walk on. I paused before I got to the Big Pond, but no beaver was out today. I wonder if the stiff wind keeps them in. The hole was frozen. The beavers must know the season is on their side and they don't have to be so careful keeping the hole open.
While everyone else in our area was desperate for real spring, I had become addicted to the freedom the ice gave me. My hikes were getting ridiculously long and one day I was tired and wanted to get home. The Big Pond was in the way.
March 28 I saw right away that there would be a delay: two beavers were out at the hole, one large and one small. To make a long story short, I saw four different beavers and, I think, heard others. The littlest one spent most of its time gnawing a little twig. A medium sized one, very reddish, ate beside the little guy, them ambled up in the woods. It stayed up there and when I left I saw that it was debarking a log. This answers the question I had about why the beaver sometimes ate in the woods and other times dragged a branch back. There were too many beavers out back at the hole. The largest beaver, ignoring the convenience of the little beaver, dragged the limb down into the hole and gnawed it up there. Another large beaver swam over, seemed to collect some little twigs and dove back into the water. Could the two larger beavers be co-operating in an effort to feed some babies inside? Then another beaver, not quite as small as the little guy, came out. It was the first to get an inkling that I was around. The two little ones swam together then swam into the hole. One came out, I made a noise and it heard it. No panic, but it did get back to the hole and then the two little ones dove and raced back to safety. The two best photos:
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That's three beavers. So they, I assume, are yearlings; the reddish beaver a two year; the two big ones mother and father, and some babies back in the lodge which may very well be the muskrat lodge which is there, judging from the sounds. The old beaver lodge is right next door. I walked home past the beaver in the woods, we both paused briefly and went about out business.
Of course, I make it my business to try to understand beavers and after these winter experiences I had a lot of thinking to do.
It may see strange but I often associate beavers with shopping malls. Primarily I do this because where I live most of the malls are placed on land which not many years before was swamp land, probably prime beaver habitat. Yet, this winter I thought of malls and beavers in another context. Undoubtedly the beaver is an engineer and builder, but it is also a shopper. Unlike so many other animals it does not really hunt for food in the winter. Indeed in the winter no other animal can so plainly see what is available to eat; it is more plain to see in the winter than in other seasons. In such a situation an animal could be methodical, careful to conserve energy and precious heat. But the beavers I watched seem less interested in executing a survival program, than in preserving the ability to pick and choose.
April brought the thaw, soon the pond began to open
and with the opening the beavers' moved to other parts of the pond. The thaw also revealed the extent of their winter's harvest. One morning I walked through the cut trees and stumps and called that relatively small slice of the woods, the beaver mall
That world had seemed so large to me, and that photo hardly captures it, and it must have seemed huge to the beavers during the winter. Now in the spring, it seemed so small, and no doubt seemed small to the beavers.
That April, I told myself that it was unlikely I'd see those beavers close-up again. I was wrong about that. With the thaw the pond water began to rise. The task at hand for the beavers was to repair the dam, and they began to push mud up onto the dam. Though I no longer saw them at mid-day, the days grew so long that they had to begin working in the evening long before the sun went down. In previous years when I came to this pond on spring evenings, the beavers had been so ferocious in banging their tails, that I often felt obliged to move on and not bother them.
This May, as I sat on a downed tree beside the end of the dam, I often saw a beaver swimming right toward me. As it got closer I braced for its splash. It came closer and closer and closer. It seemed to stare at me, smell me, and then it moved off. Then one day, a beaver stopped right below me,
and got out of the water right beside me. Unfortunately, one clump of grass prevented me from getting the best close-ups ever of a beaver nibbling on sticks. For an instant I fancied that this was my reward for, in a sense, sharing the long winter with the beavers. Then I twitched and the beaver lunged into the pond water.
Were the beavers still thinking about me, just as I am thinking about them? In June a beaver often swam up to me as I crossed the dam in the middle of the day -- I learned in time that it was on the look-out for otters. Sometimes they did splash their tails at me. I am writing this now in late September, and a few days ago, a beaver swam up to me as I sat by the dam, sniffed the air, then dove and swam away without sounding any alarm. It had a large pond to swim through and I didn't even see it resurface. The leaves were changing; we both knew that; soon we'd meet again in that dazzling and demanding world of winter; our shared experiences narrowed to a grove of trees and the path leading to a hole in the ice.
Bob Arnebeck
