RECENT SIGHTINGS

Haven't been out and down by the pond much in the last couple of weeks - hope that will change!  But, it is gorgeous from in the house, up here on the hill.  A few recent sightings: 

• Carol D saw a beaver sitting on the ice eating yesterday morning.  We are in the mid-section of the pond.  I think I might have seen it again this AM, but couldn't get my binocs on it quickly enough to be sure.
• Both Carol D and Linda & I saw an adult fox go through our yards a few days ago and then Linda & I saw a young one today in our yard, then it went down and sat down to look a the pond for a while.  Meanwhile, Blake (our dog) went crazy and I think the fox heard it as it passed through our yard, down the driveway and down the street - I think it lives across the street in the hollow.  I saw tracks in the snow after the Dec. 3rd snow that crossed the street from our house and went down into the hollow.  That is where the den was a couple years ago.  The youngster this morning had a lighter colored back right foot - the others were black, but this one more mottled and grey or white.
• Carol S said that she saw two kits playing in her yard after the November snow (8th or so?)  Probably one of them was the one we saw today.  
• The great blue heron is not a regular visitor right now, but I saw it on our landing a couple days ago.  But, I also saw one sitting on the ball field over by the Fairbank Center!!  Ummm... the ball field?  Baseball season is over!
• Lots of black ducks around still
• The muskrats are very busy going back and forth in the morning and evening - sometimes mid-day.  

Always interesting around here!!

ICY POND

Wasn't the snow pretty this weekend?  I loved the way it coated the ice on the pond and collected the crevices of the tree bark.

Pond in the Snow

I found that there were tracks in the soft, slushy ice.  From a distance, up the hill, I thought they were probably duck trails.  As I got closer, I realized that they were thinner than a duck would leave and some were short and right in the middle of the ice, and one started really thin close to the shore, then got a little bigger as it went out, then disappeared, but you could see a faint change in the ice beyond that.  I think it must be muskrat trails.  The trail that goes to the upper left corner, past the thicker ice, heads out the same direction that the muskrats frequently go.

Muskrat (?) trails

I watched a pair of black ducks land on the pond this morning.  Descending into the thick fog that was over the ice, they totally disappeared from view and made no splash and very little disruption in the water.  I only knew they had landed when the swam out of the mist. I am always amazed at how smoothly they land (in contrast with some other ducks!).  We seem to have a lot of black ducks at the moment; I'm seeing very few mallards in this part of the pond, but many blacks.

We also have the white-throated sparrows who have returned to our yard.  It's funny, but I rarely see them during the summer; mostly they show up in the cold weather.

White-throated Sparrow

Still lots going on out there, even though we mostly hunker down inside.

NEW FEEDER BIRD

Hmm... She seems to have the feeder all to herself!  (Photo shot from indoors with point & shoot camera)

Red-tailed Hawk

BRRR....

It's a frosty, chilly morning - wonderfully seasonal. This morning when I was out with the dog (about 5:15), the sky was totally clear and the stars bright.  Venus was in the east and Jupiter so big in the west that it looked the size of several of the other stars.  The ground crunched frozen under my feet, and the Rhodies were curled and pendant.  The thermometer agreed that it was chilly - 25 degrees.  

More ice on the pond this morning; there has been some ice for the past few days, but today it covers most of the lower end of the pond (the big part where the dam is) and has reached up here to the middle section (the water flows faster up stream).  I've always wanted to play icebreaker and launch my canoe into the icing water, but alas, my shoulder says I should not; it will have to wait for another fall.  

Meanwhile the cove in front of our house and Carol & Joe's house is mostly clear of ice.  Saturday, the Great Blue Heron hung out there almost all day.  We watched it seeking lunch.  I've never managed to see a GBH catch and swallow so clearly before.  We watched it eat 4 fish. The bird would tilt its head with one eye facing the water (so that it could see more clearly out of its eye without the beak in the way?) and suddenly strike!  This one was good! We only saw it miss once in the time we watched.  After eating a bit, it sat on the shore at our landing.  Further from shore, there was a whole flotilla of black duck in the cove, upending to get plant material and a king fisher flew by chittering.  Five hooded mergansers, 2 males and 3 females were diving; they seemed to be having good fishing as well!  Good to know that the fish are thriving; I read that one of the issues when a pond it covered with the water chestnuts, is that the chestnuts choke the pond, both using too much of the oxygen and also creating mats of vegetation that are hard to swim through.  Hopefully we will be able to keep on top of the water chestnuts from now on!

So do the muskrats swim across the pond when there is ice forming on it?  Gotta watch!
Stay warm, all; and instead of complaining about the cold, bundle up and get out in it and watch nature.

Icing Begins on the Pond

LOVELY WEEKEND!

What a nice weekend, eh?  And great that this rain held off until today. Linda & I spent some time sitting on a bench (two logs & a board) up a ways from the shore and just watching.  The muskrats were busy going back and forth across the pond, a great blue heron came in and did some fishing at water's edge, we saw the hooded mergansers again and there was a flock of geese.

Busy Muskrat

Closer to the house, we have a black squirrel this year - I've seen it many times in the yard, and the birds are still eating like mad!  Our feeders are constantly occupied.  The coopers hawk likes that.  Saw a red-tail hawk fly between the house & pond yesterday; he's probably looking for a squirrel - we have a few!  The fox ran across the street yesterday - bushy, sleek and gorgeous with its bright white tail tip!  Then there are the spectacular winter trees.  I can never decide if I like the trees better in winter, spring, summer or fall!

Winter trees at dawn

RHODY QUESTION ANSWERED

Check it out!  Someone answered my question about when/why the leaves on a rhododendron plant curl!  The why apparently isn't known, but the when is at  -.5C they begin to curl.  Read the whole post - it is a comment on my last post, Nov. 6.  The comment was written by Anonymous (that person really gets around!), so I don't know if it was by one of you or if someone from the Rhododendron Society webpage answered my email on the blog rather than via email.  Anyway, I'm glad and it is interesting.  So this morning, when I went out with the dog, I knew it was below freezing, but not too far below freezing, because the Rhody leaves were beginning to curl, but hadn't yet become pendant.  :-)  Knowledge is fun.

Hooded mergansers on the pond this afternoon - two males & two females.  

First snow - Nor'easter on Nov. 8, 2012

RHODODENDRON LEAVES

I could tell it was cold this morning; the Rhododendron leaves had all curled up. Actually, I didn't have any trouble noticing the cold when I was out with the dog at 5:30...  (Thankfully, I've trained him the he does NOT go out as soon as we get up!  I get to do my exercises and such first!)  Back to the Rhodies.  I have noticed this curling every winter, and I wonder at what temperature they curl.  It is clearly when it is below freezing, but is it before that or at 30 degrees or what?  Today it was 23 when we were out.  I found a website on Rhododendron (when I was trying to get the spelling right!).  Maybe they have a question/answer.  (The mountain laurel do this, too - do all of the Azalea plants?)
(10/9/12 - Hey! We got an answer to this question.  Click the "comment" at the end of this post)

Rhododendron leaves curled from the cold

Lots of ripples on the pond when we were on the porch at dawn, before sunrise; didn't see any brown furry things, but there sure was activity.  No ice yet.  Ice in the birdbath, though!  I'll take them some water when it warms up a bit more.

From Suzanne: 

The other night I saw 4 muskrats at once in between our houses.  They would get food and bring it back and all climb on the log and eat.  There were four at once on the log. (Just before dark)

I want to see that!  Gotta hang out down there more in the late afternoon.

THE SUN ON THOSE CHILLY PRE-WINTER DAYS

Being an early morning person who prefers the colder weather, these last couple of days have been fantastic in my book.  (Apologies to those of you who are sleep-in-and-I-like-it-warm people.)  Yesterday was just amazing.  I love the color of the light in the trees and I love being in the sun when it is cold.  In the summer, I avoid the sun, but it is so pleasant to feel it through the cool breeze when paddling on a fall afternoon.  Last night Linda & I sat down by the pond and watched it get dark.  Just like morning, the light changes in the trees and it is quite magnificent.

The critters are definitely hunkering down for the cold weather.  Most of the migratory birds are gone and those who migrate to us from the north are here chowing down!  I'm filling the bird feeders at least once a day.  We have a flock of about 20 dark-eyed juncos and I swear every goldfinch in the county is in our yard!  Am I complaining, no... I love it.  The coopers hawk likes what shows up at that feeder, too!  (The don't eat the seeds, they eat the seed-eaters and pickings are easier when there are a lot of birds in one place.)  

The funny thing about the migrating birds, like the juncos, is that we are listed in the year-round area, but right here, we don't usually have them much in the summer, we just get those who have moved south. (Our juncos are the slate-colored variety of the dark-eyed, in case you are looking at a book to see what they look like)  Likewise, the purple finch are year round birds, but I have rarely seen them here in the summer.  Some, like the robins, are also winter migrants from the north - our birds that we had all summer have mostly gone south further, but for the north birds, we are south and they have arrived!  The blue jays are northern birds and they stay year-round as do the woodpeckers. (we regularly have downy, hairy, redbellied.  We have pileated, too, but they are shier and don't come to the feeder.  I'd love to again see the one I saw a couple weeks ago!

Linda & I have this morning ritual, where by 5:30 AM we are out on our porch, overlooking the pond, with a cup of coffee and wrapped in blankets (the dog is under my blanket, keeping my lap warm!).  It is dark, but there are lots of sounds.  This morning we had a screech owl from the other side of the pond and there was a lot of splashing in the pond.  It is an active time of day and we feel blessed to share 10-15 minutes of it with the critters.  The dog seemed to be hearing something near the pond this morning and I thought I was seeing something dark pass in front of a spot that was reflecting some of the sky light (cloudy, so it was pretty diffuse).  I did the look at it out of the corner of your eye trick, but could never tell if my eyes were playing tricks on me, or if I was seeing something moving down there.  Morning mysteries.

Anyone seen the otters recently?  I saw two swans taking off and flying low over the pond on Friday. 

QUIET MORNING

The pond is quiet this morning, after the turbulence of the storm.  

South shore in the middle section

North shore in the middle section

Aren't the reflections wonderful?  
Quiet from a critter point of view, as well.  I saw two king fishers, one at either end - actually I heard them, didn't see them.  Likewise, heard two Carolina wrens - one on either side of the pond.  One goose flew over heading toward the dam, then 4 landed in the upper end, followed, a few minutes later, by 2 more geese landing near the first four.  Also a Great Blue.  nothing else.  Although, I did not go all the way to either end; my shoulder is acting up...  But it was a lovely, sunny moring to be out!  Hey!  (I just looked up), it got all dark out there!!  Don't like the weather? - wait a minute.
--DIane

POST STORM - SANDY

The pond is up about 4 inches as of this morning (the day after the big part of the storm).  I swear I saw WHITE CAPS on the pond yesterday!  The wind was really moving the water up stream!!

Haven't seen the swans, the cormorants, the osprey or the otters recently.  Have you?

Please become an author on this blog.  Let me know you are interested and I will add you as an official author.

STORM: SANDY APPROACHES

There is a long string of geese swimming up the pond, which looks pretty calm at the moment.  It is interesting that our weather vane says the wind is out of the north east, but the pond has been blowing the waves toward our cove, from the south east.  What is happening on the pond doesn't seem to reflect what is happening in the treetops.  A while ago - Whoops, again right now!, the wind is really blowing the water over toward us, but there is very little motion in the tops of the trees.  

All of the leaves in this area of the pond are piled up in one long strip (lengthwise with the pond) and the strip of leaves does not come to the shore, it has been floating more in the center or south of center.  Earlier, I noticed that the leaves were moving down toward the dam, even though the wind was blowing waves in the opposite direction!  I wonder if they are floating over where the brook would be if there were no dam.

We've had a lot of birds at the feeders this morning, stoking up on food to help keep them warm.  I'm glad we have a lot of bushes, dead trees with nest holes and branch piles so that the birds have places to seek some shelter.  (I went out to the carport to get another armload of wood and startled some bird who was taking refuge there.)  I'll leave the feeders up until the wind starts getting worse; there is a flock of goldfinch, a couple chickadees and a nuthatch on the feeder right now.

We saw some wood ducks in the cove earlier this morning and there have been a steady stream of geese all day.  What have you seen?

COYOTE OR FOX HOWLING?

This morning, about 5:30 AM, when Linda & I were having our coffee & tea on the porch, listening to the night sounds, we again heard a call that we can't identify coming from the other side of the pond.  In my uneducated terms, it sounded like a cross between a rooster and what I imagine is a coyote.  Too early for roosters and the farm is in the other direction down the pond, but there were little, short noises, usually 3 of them ("Hey, Hey, Hey!") then a howl.  I'm thinking coyote.  But then I also did some looking at YouTube for fox sounds.  I am unconvinced on either.  Next time I should run in and grab my recorder so that I can really remember.

Here are a couple of YouTube videos with sounds of each:

Coyotes calling together (audio only)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3MrcUUzKgo

Coyote yips and howl (with video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbHeTPwWBbk

Fox calls - interesting - as the caption says, it could explain some of those strange noises heard at night!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6NuhlibHsM&feature=related

FOX and POSSIBLE GREEN TEAL

The leaves are on fire when the early morning sun is finally up and hits the tops of the trees along the south side of the pond!  It is just gorgeous when the tops of the trees are lit up and the bottoms still in shadow; interestingly, it doesn't matter if they are fall trees, spring trees or summer trees, the color contrasts are always beautiful!  And winter trees?  My favorites.  I love the patterns they etch in the sky. 

Early Morning Sun Hits the Treetops

 Saw a fox yesterday as I was out walking the dog about 6:30 AM.  Not sure if it was "Patches" or some other.  We have one that has a patch on its side that makes it very obvious.  Two summers ago we had a whole family down in the hollow and we saw the kits all the time.  This year when I see one, it is usually walking along the pond edge.  I think there is a den on the other side of the cove.

Saw those little brown ducks again when Linda & I were out yesterday.  One flashed a large patch of green, so I'm thinking the are probably green teal; both male & female green teal look like little brown ducks in the winter and they are the smallest dabbling ducks we have.  These guys looked smaller than the wood ducks they were with.

There was a photographer on the dam this morning (Linda & I were out just before sunrise).  He said he was trying to get the mist on the falls and the colors of the leaves.  I wished I'd asked who he was and if he had a website where he would be posting his pictures.  

Painted Turtles Enjoy Morning Sun

BIRDS & ACORNS

The first dark eyed juncos have arrived!  I saw them this afternoon.  Our goldfinch have mostly lost their bright yellow and are taking on the winter plumage.  We have an immature male cardinal who is beginning to get his reds, and the chickadees, tufted titmice and white-breasted nuthatch are eating us out of house and home!  I filled that tube feeder and the peanut tray at noon - 6 hours later both are more than half empty.  I love watching the nuthatch - they take the peanuts straight to a favorite tree and stash the nut meat under some bark for winter eating.  I wonder how much they actually get and how much the squirrels find!  Birds are special...

=======
Great acorn page on the Mass Audubon site.  Remember a couple years ago when it sounded like buckets of them being poured on the roof??  That, I guess, is called a "Mast Year"
http://www.massaudubon.org/blogs/yourgreatoutdoors/about-those-acorns/

PILEATED WOODPECKER AND MORE LODGES AND DENS

It's a misty morning on the pond with the temperatures in the 30s. The sunlight is gorgeous on the fall colored leaves.  Saw pileated woodpecker this morning on the walk with the dog; it was across the street in the neighbors yard. I heard this really funny noise (after the earthquake last night, I'm noticing funny noises!).  Finally decided it was a woodpecker, so I looked around and there he was in the tippy top of a dead tree, bright in the morning sun!

Somebody's digging under the tree at our landing. I've suspected something was going on, but haven't seen anything for sure until this morning. The sand right around under the the tree root has been disturbed. The hole is deeper than it was and the silt that usually covers the sand is gone. I'll have to keep an eye on it.

I paddled toward the upper end of the pond this morning.  I counted over 100 birds in the water until my canoe spooked them and they went flying. And that number doesn't even include the ones that were further up the pond. It was very misty and hard to see all the way to the mouth of the brook.  It looked like there was another kind of duck amid the masses that wasn't either a wood duck or mallard, but I couldn't see it well enough. Got to figure out a way to get close to the birds without paddling in and scaring them.

There was also a female duck with the usual brown markings, but it's smaller than the mallards and maybe even smaller than a wood deck. She was making a strange sound not the usual quack of the mallards.  I wonder what it is?  I'll probably never know given the brown female markings.

I found at least three more lodges up on the upper end of the pond, north side, just before it narrows. They look like muskrat lodges; of course I don't REALLY know, but that's what they look like to me.

Anyone know with this big tall plant is? It's probably six or seven feet tall has a top like wheat or some other kind of grain grass. It has long pointy leaves the leaves are about 18 inches long and look a lot like corn leaves.  There are a lot of them on the north side of the pond.

I also saw a great blue heron and the Kingfisher flew over very high in the sky. We have more water in the pond after all this rain. I think that helps the critters to get closer to our banking under that tree because in the summer it's fairly shallow right there.  I was able to paddle quite a ways up the pond, although I didn't go very far because I didn't want to spook all of the birds.  But, I was able to get close to the shore as well as paddling straight up the center without getting stuck in the mud and that is an improvement!

PICKING UP WATER CHESTNUT SEED PODS & OTTER SIGHTINGS

I went out to paddle this AM, intending to go to the upper end of the pond and see who was there, but I never got past about mid-way.  I flushed about 50 Canada geese, saw a gorgeous red-tail, the kingfisher and a muskrat.  On my way west to the upper end, I saw some floating water chestnut nuts/seedpods and picked them up.  I have attached a gallon water jug to my seat thwart on my canoe so that I can pick them up and not have them in the bottom of the canoe for Blake to step on and get stuck in his paw.  Anyway, I started picking them up and about 15 minutes later, I had about 1/3 of the jug filled!  So if I picked up 75 nuts, that is about 750 plants that won't grow next year!  YES!

Last night Suzanne emailed:

Was sitting outside watching just before you and Linda went out in the kayaks. The otters went back and forth almost exactly where your kayaks were. I'm pretty sure the big otter carried a fish back. There was one big otter and one smaller.  The muskrats were busy on the other side of our house.

Interestingly, we went out because Linda thought she had seen a beaver or an otter in our cove (which is where Suzanne saw us sitting).  We were thinking beaver because it was bigger and shaggier, but it could have been an otter.  We watched one return to the same place Suzanne & Michael saw it, but couldn't tell what it was; definitely not a muskrat as it had a bigger head and a bigger nose.  Later, from the boats, we saw muskrats going back and forth and returning to that same area between our houses.  It seemed like they just went across to the vegetation and then came back, without taking time to eat or bring anything.  What are they doing?  "Back in a few, honey.  I'm going to go do a few laps."

WATER CHESTNUT INFORMATION

(This is yesterday's post with more information)

WATER CHESTNUTS (Trapa natans)
I want to pass on some info about water chestnuts today.  These are not native plants, but have been brought here from Euraisa in the late 1800s as ornamental plants, and now considered invasive plants.  They are NOT the same as the Chinese Water Chestnuts we eat in Chinese food. (Although, I guess the nuts of our Trapa natans are also boiled and eaten in India and China.)

There is a really good short flier from Cornell, Cayuga County Cooperative Education Department.  They say to pass it on, so I have posted it at 
http://bandnotes.info/PondsWaterways/waterchestnutalert.pdf

One interesting piece of information (which explains why they take over the pond so quickly!):

Water Chestnut is an annual plant with a high reproductive capacity. The seeds germinate in early spring. An individual seed can give rise to 10 to 15 rosettes, each of which can produce 15 to 20 seeds. Thus, one seed can produce 300 new seeds in a single year. Water Chestnuts begin to flower in mid to late July and nuts will ripen approximately one month later. Flowering and seed production continue into the fall when frost kills the floating rosettes. The mature nuts sink to the bottom when dropped and can remain viable for up to 8 to 12 years. The plant spreads either by the rosettes detaching from their stems and floating to another area, or more often by the nuts being swept by currents or waves to other parts of the lake or stream. The plant over winters entirely by seed.

Wow...  So it is crucial that we get all of the plants, BEFORE they go to seed.  And whenever you see a nut floating on the surface, pick it up and put it in the trash!  Don't leave it on the shore as the barbs are VERY sharp and some animal could step on it and get it lodged in a paw/hoof.  

It is important to pull up carefully to get the seed pod on the bottom so that more plants don't grow up from it.  The plant can also reproduce from plant parts left in the water.

========
This video is of the Mystic River and the narrator pulls up a whole plant and talks about being careful to get all of it.  (1:50 minutes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ-Orod1Lf4&feature
 
=======
Here are some great pictures from the MassNature.com website:
http://www.massnature.com/Plants/Herbs/waterchestnut.htm
(photos courtesy of massnature.com (c) 2003)

Water Chestnut Leaves

Water Chestnut Seed Pod

========
This video is a little longer (5:39), but talks about why this invasive plant is a problem in our waterways (we know it is hard to paddle, impossible to swim.  She also talks about choking out the fish, frogs & turtles, and the mats hold in the heat so the temperature rises.  One acre can become 100 acres the next year.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FSj2C-IX-A


========
More info from the US Department of Agriculture: 
http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/aquatics/waterchestnut.shtml#.UHrV6hjaizQ

OTTER SIGHTING

Saw three otters playing in our cove yesterday AM.  We couldn't see much through the trees and bushes, but I was glad to know they are there - apparently otters switch ponds fairly frequently and I hadn't seen them in a while. 
(I moved all of the Water Chestnut info to a new entry as I had a bunch of stuff to add.)

RESEARCH - MUSKRATS

I really don't know much about the muskrats, so I decided to spend some time researching the info I can find.  Here's some of the random interesting information I located.  (I've created a list of muskrat, otter, etc. websites below, right.)

INFO THAT I HAVE GLEANED FROM WATCHING OUR CRITTERS & FROM EARLIER READING:

• Muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus) are marsh animals, rodents, herbivores (although they will eat some clams/mussels and fish). 
• They have rodent type teeth (think rabbit or mouse or guinea pig)
• The Native Americans called them, musquash.
• They live in dens on the shore of the pond or lake and often will make a small lodge out of vegetation, smaller than a beaver lodge.  Sometimes they will take over old beaver lodges.  
• Muskrats are often hunted for their pelts.  
• They eat "clean" food and make a good dinner. Their meat is often sold as "marsh rabbit".  
• They swim really fast and leave a wake!  They propel themselves with their huge back feet and their tails.  Sometimes the tail comes up out of the water, but often you can't see it.  The water in front of the muskrat's muzzle is often churned up and looks silvery and as if the animal is carrying something.  
• They can carry large chunks of vegetation, like the water chestnuts I have seen, and long grasses.

========
From a Cleveland  Museum of Natural History flier called, "Muskrat's Lodge" www.cmnh.org/site/Files/SRCenter/Muskrat.pdf, comes the following info:

Muskrat: Muskrats (Ondatra zibethica) are excellent swimmers, spending their entire life near water. They are closely related to the small mouse-like voles, but are much larger. They average a length of l8-26 inches, including their 10-inch long, slightly flattened, rat-like tail. Typically, they weigh two to four pounds when fully grown. Natural enemies of the Muskrat include the mink, birds of prey, wolf, coyote and fox.

(According to the Wikipedia article,  young muskrats are also prey for otters and snapping turtles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muskrat)

  Muskrat’s Habitat & Range: The muskrat creates its lodge or burrow in the shallow water of ponds or lakes and also in hollows in the banks of streams and rivers.  Cattail stalk chips and leaves are mixed with mud to help bind the walls and the dome of its lodge together.  The home is secured against enemies by having the entrance below the water surface, with the dome projecting two to three feet above the water level. Hawks, owls, eagles, wolves and coyotes are, therefore, unlikely to capture the Muskrat its young while inside its lodge.

Muskrats flourish throughout the USA and Canada; only the very southernmost areas of this country are without this animal.

Muskrat’s Diet & Nesting: The roots and stalks of cattails are the Muskrat’s principal food source. They also eat fish, clams and other swamp plants.
A pair of Muskrats produce several litters of young each season. Each brood varies in number from two to nine.

========
A really interesting page about muskrats comes from Bob Arnebeck 
http://bobarnebeck.com/muskrats.htm
Some of the things that struck me as interesting [stuff in brackets are my comments]: 

• When you see clam shells neatly opened on the shore, it was probably a muskrat that ate it.  Beavers and otters are less patient and break the shells.  [We have clam shells like that on our pond landing!]
• [Hmmm... I'm also learning that beavers are more active at night.  Perhaps that is what we are hearing when sitting on the porch in the dark pre-dawn.]
• Speaking of sounds, "Muskrats make an eerie whistling sound when they are stalking each other."  And, like a beaver, it can use its tail to make a splashing noise when it dives.  [I haven't seen that. When diving, I've only seen a smooth entry.]
• "Where I live along the St. Lawrence River, wildlife biologists have been talking about how essential muskrats are in controlling the spread of cattails. Like much scientific argument in our day this one involves the complex interplay of water levels, fish spawning and muskrat proliferation. In my experience, cattails are not the favorite food of muskrats, nor have I observed them limiting their spread. That said, though they might not be essential in righting bad things humans have done to the environment, like the oversilting of river banks from run off than can favor cattail proliferation, the muskrat does its part in keeping ponds and river banks from getting choked with plants"   [I should email him and ask if he has ever seen them eating water chestnuts!]

Mr. Arnebeck also has pictures comparing muskrats, beaver, otter and mink on his otter page:
http://bobarnebeck.com/otters/index.html

======= "...Muskrats can 'eat out' a marsh area... They are reported to eat up to one-third of their weight per day and destroy much more vegetation than they eat."  Hmmm... how does this relate to our family who are eating water chestnuts!
http://www.nwrc.usgs.gov/techrpt/84-09.pdf

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I'm talking a lot about water chestnuts in these blogs.  Some of you may not really know which plant they are; I didn't know until about 2 years ago.  You can find a great picture of the plant, flower and seed at: 
http://www.massnature.com/Plants/Herbs/waterchestnut.htm

=======
What else do you know or have you seen?  Any other websites to add to the list?
Let me know. Tomorrow's blog will have more about water chestnuts.

SONGBIRDS & MUSKRAT LODGE

Brrr!  Chilly this morning!  I should have brought some gloves.  Gorgeous, though; the rising sun shines through all the fall leaves and reflects off of the rain drops.  

I spent most of my time watching the small song birds today.  There were Eastern Phoebes in the berry bushes on the north side, near the muskrat lodge.  Other birds were there, too, but I couldn't ID them (I'm not really very good at the non-feeder birds, especially warblers and most especially FALL warblers!).  A couple were sparrow like, maybe even a pine siskin, but it seems early for the siskins.  Another had a soft-yellow belly!  There are a lot of berries over there, so many birds feed in those bushes.  It is worth another look.

The muskrat lodge seemed bigger than the last time I looked at it, yet it still seems about 3 feet tall.  Possibly it was just easier to see because the bushes are dying away, or maybe they have added to it some; the position of the sticks and such seem a little bit different, but the size seems about the same.

Muskrat Lodge Oct 10, 2012

Muskrat Lodge, Oct 2, 2012

I saw two muskrat crossings (same animal or two different ones?). One took back a large water chestnut plant.

I tried some new technology while out on the pond and used Dragon Dictate on my iPhone to keep track of the birds and such.  It worked well and I could speak through the waterproof case!  A few problems, like "60 candidate geese" and "would ducks"  Hmmm...  Here is the list:

• 60 Canada geese in upper end of pond. 
• Four more in lower end of pond. 
• 15 wood ducks in lower end of pond and about 30 more mid-pond, maybe more but I can't see all the way to the end of the pond.
• Lower end of pond had so many ducks & geese that you could almost walk across the pond on the back of the birds. Seem to be mallards and black ducks.
• Great Blue flying overhead, croaking all the way. 
• Two swan together near the brook inlet
• Kingfisher flew over. 
• Several blue jays calling in the tree.  Hawk overhead. Two hawks overhead. That's probably what the blue jays are complaining about. 
• No otters today; I haven't seen them in a while. But on the other hand, we were gone all weekend and I've only been out paddling twice in the last week.

SWANS ARE BACK!

Nice paddle this morning.  Met two of the swans that were reported at the end of last week (Carol S said she had seen three on Thursday!)

Spoke to a fisherman on the dam who said he had caught 3 small bass this morning.

A muskrat was busy chowing down in the water chestnuts and brought one home.  For some reason, he wasn't bothered by me today and I was quite close - I could see his teeth as he was eating!  (With binoculars)  Couldn't get any decent pictures though, cuz I just had my point and shoot, it was still pretty dark and he moved a lot. 

We seem to be back to the normal number of wood ducks (down from the 50 some I saw a while back!), although, they could have mostly been up stream.  Saw one great blue and several geese.  Otherwise, a quiet & lovely morning.

MUSKRAT VIDEO

Carol D just sent me this video of a muskrat mucking about in the inlet area.  It was taken by her sister in May, 2012.  Cool shot!  I need to do some exploring from the shore, too.

 

video by K. Barrett

SOFT, GREY MORNING. MUSKRAT LODGE

What a soft, pretty, grey morning.  The drizzle drops in the pond with little kerplunks; the leaves are coming off of some trees so heavily that it looks like a yellow snow storm; a pair of cormorants are sitting on that incredibly photogenic snag in the lower end of the pond (WHY is my camera home on my desk??).  Ah, the early morning is SOOO peaceful and gorgeous; I can never decide which I like best, pre-sunrise time or about a half hour after sunrise - both are so special, but different.  Gee... guess I'll just have to do both in any given week.  

I went straight to the lower end of the pond, the dam end, this morning trying not to bother the muskrats or otters.  That part of the pond is still looking really good after the harvesting this summer!  Wouldn't it be wonderful if we can get the harvester further west, into the inlet area.  I heard talk of eventually dredging the pond, too.  Wouldn't that be nice, to get rid of all of the toxic sludge deposits from the sewage plant up stream!

Saw the two cormorants, a great blue, a very busy and chattery kingfisher and flushed about 25 wood ducks.  One day last week I counted 57 some wood ducks!  They must be congregating, getting ready to migrate.  The numbers are down, though, so perhaps some just came in to rest and then left again?  Or do they migrate adults first, then the new ones later like some birds?  Anyone know?  Guess it's time to dig out my Kenn Kaufman, Lives of North American Birds.  

I came at the lodge (muskrat? otter?) from a different angle today and couldn't find it until I was very close, so perhaps that's why I hadn't seen it before.  Better look up lodges, too!  Hmmm...  guess I'll be busy researching today.  :-)

Speaking of photogenic branches, this is a shot from several years ago where I was in the right place at the right time - I love the way the line of the bird is so similar to the line of the tree.

Great Blue Heron over Hop Brook, just west of Stearns Mill Pond

 Email me your favorite Stearns Mill Pond or Hop Brook shots and I'll post them (with credit to you, of course!)

UPPER POND NEAR THE BROOK INLET

I thought I'd go to the upper end of the pond today and leave the muskrats alone.  Blake & I got in the canoe, shoved off shore and I noticed the sure sign of otters swimming in the water, so it was quite a while before I even go out of our cove!  The otters (looked like 4 but turned out to be 5!) were cavorting in the water while swimming across the pond - moving fast!  When they got to the north side, they got up on shore and some (probably the young ones) were chasing and playing in the bushes.  Then there were 3 in the water and still some ruckus on the shore.  Now there were four in the water, some swimming on top of each other!  They see me... 4 heads turned our way and staring at us!  Here comes the fifth otter, chuffing and complaining.  All go under and disappear.  Then I saw the lodge.  Theirs?  Seems small.  I left it to look at later after the animals had managed to go to safety.  The lodge is right near where they were playing and swimming and where they were on land.  I've watch them in this spot before and I swear there was nothing there last week!  I'll have to keep an eye on it - it is probably just shy of 3 feet tall (the part out of the water).

UPPER END OF POND
It is possible to more easily paddle toward the upper end of the pond, but there are still a lot of water chestnuts up there, more than in the center area.  (Our central area muskrats are doing a good job of eating those darn plants!  I saw some muskrats nibbling away this AM.  No swimming branches, though).  Lots of birds in the upper end.  As I approached, I flushed 15 geese, 37 wood ducks, a great blue heron & 2 double crested cormorants.  Many of them landed in the inlet of the brook which looked too full to add any more birds to the collection of geese, mallards and black ducks that were already there!

It is still very shallow and mucky, so it is hard to go far.  The rain over the weekend helped, but not enough to make it fun paddling. 


After checking out the upper end, I went back to the center and looked at the lodge.

Wish I'd had my SLR camera - there would have been a great shot: a great blue on the upper branch of a snag, with a cormorant sitting closer to the water, about 2 bird lengths away.  They looked content with each others' company.  

Again, leave comments on what YOU have seen.  If there is no comment box visible, click on the word "comments" and a box will show up.  If you put your sightings in there, I'll add them to my list that I started in the right column.

MUSKRAT WITH WATER CHESTNUT, HARVESTER VIDEO

Monday, October 1, 2012 

     Three times, now, I’ve seen a muskrat bringing home a water chestnut plant!

I’ve zoomed in on my picture, so it is a bit fuzzy, but if you look carefully, you will see there is brown under that plant!  Now if we can just convince them that the spring plants are tender and delicious…

They were busy this morning – back and forth, back and forth, but I only saw the one bringing home anything.  Wonder if they chew it up and carry it in their mouths?  Looking at them swim, it looks like they have something, but it turns out to be just the water roiling up in front of them.  Mostly they go one at a time.  Today, one went out and was over there a LONG time messing in what is left of the water chestnuts.  A second one went over and very shortly both came back.  Hmmm.  ("Junior, you get home right this very minute!!")  This picture shows both of them.

Lots of hawk calling today; there were more than one of them around.  I was looking for the hawk on the north side of the pond when one called from right behind me!  But up close, this does not look like a red-tail!  Any thoughts?  Immature? 

As you know, and as you can see in the opening picture of the video below, we have had a very green pond; the water chestnuts have been a REAL problem this year.  By May, it wasn't much fun paddling, and in June, I couldn't get through them without a great deal of work! Thankfully, by this time of year (autumn), the paddling is good again because the plants are starting to die off and drop to the bottom of the pond (and of course, the muskrats have been busy!).  However, any seeds that were on the plants have fallen off and been nicely planted to grow next year.

Ann Kirk organized a community pull to start working on the problem.  (Follow the link for the Town Crier article and pictures of the event.)  We had over three dozen people helping out and many boats out on the water.  But, alas, all our work barely made a dent.

The harvester that was contracted for Carding Mill Pond wasn't needed there, so was brought in to Stearns Mill Pond. It accomplished a lot at the dam end of the pond, but couldn’t get very far down here in the center and at the up stream end – too shallow.  The plan for next year is to try to raise the dam for a while so the harvester can get further in and then do the community pull after the harvester finishes so that we can clear out the invasive weeds that the machine can't get.  Here is a short video of the harvester at work.  Pretty cool!  (Thanks, Ann!)

July 12, 2012

 

 So, what have you seen and experienced on our pond?  Leave a comment about your experiences.

THE ORIGINS OF THIS BLOG, OTTER VIDEO

So I am semi-retired now and am spending a bit of my mornings on the pond.  I started keeping a pond journal, but today it occurred to me that it would be great if others added their observations and we could share what we've seen and noticed.

With that, I'll start with my first few pages of my journal.

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 Thursday, September 20, 2012

Ah, retirement…

Doesn't get much better than an autumn dawn paddle on a misty pond!  Then I watched the muskrat make his busy trips from one side to the other.  The phoebes were making their chirping call so loudly that Blake started growling!  

There was a redtail having an altercation with some crows - looked like she was chasing them, though.  

THEN, I watched two otters play for about 10 minutes.  They'd surface nose to nose, then dive again.  Then come up and wrestle.  Then off to chase under water.  A third otter came and just checked in a couple times, but didn't play (mom?).  

One of them spied my boat and their heads and half of the body came up out of the water staring at me.  They moved closer and closer.  Curious.  Finally they were about 10 feet from the bow of my boat, coming up and staring.  Blake was not happy about this, but he kept quiet for me.  Finally they left, and after visiting the wood ducks, I came in so the critters could have their pond.

Magical morning.

 

 Friday, September 21, 2012

Carol joined me this morning.  I managed to see the brown furry thing that goes back and forth across the pond just after dawn well enough today to decide that it was a muskrat.  The head/body was smaller than the otter, but today I saw the tail.  We saw one of the cormorants and some wood ducks, a couple of phoebes, but they seem to be leaving – cool and not many bugs left.  No otters.

  Sunday, September 22, 2012

Linda & I (and Blake) went out today, and while trying to get a better view of the osprey, we saw 4 or 5 otters!!.  I spotted a disturbance in the water among the water chestnuts and I watched, then saw another black back and another.  AH!  An otter! Hmph.  Gone.  But there is motion in the tree that has fallen down in the water.  Sure enough, among the leaves I found this large, wet furry thing!  Mama otter.  Pretty soon a little head showed up and swam up to mama.  Then another and one more!  Three younguns.  They nuzzled in.  Awww...

Before long mama dove and disappeared, but the young ones started playing in the weeds.  I had brought my little camera and got it out, but Blake spotted the critters, too!  He wanted to go play!!  I did manage to get a bit of footage (hmmm  inchage?  It is about 10 seconds), but you can hear Blake whining and see what his wiggling was doing to my steadiness - it is hard enough to shoot in a canoe.  :-)  

While I was managing the dog & camera, Linda thought she saw FIVE of them!  Mama came up and was hissing at us - get OUT OF HERE!

Amid this excitement, we also did see an osprey – first one I’ve seen this year and I’m not even sure we saw any last year.  It has been a bad couple of years on the pond because of the water chestnut invasion. 
 

 Monday, September 24, 2012

Another very special morning!  Chilly, 40 degrees, and very misty on the pond.  Blake & I were out in the pre-sunrise dawn light.  We watched the muskrat, who was busy heading across the pond.  I think he saw us though, ‘cuz he suddenly turned around and went home.  Maybe something else was there.  OH!  That’s where I saw the otter later.  Maybe that spooked him, because we really weren’t very obvious or making sound.  The muskrats move SOOO fast!

 

We paddled toward the dam, stopping to take a few pictures of the sunrise. We saw the east end heron and then later, saw the west end heron.  I steered away from the heron so that we wouldn’t disrupt it in its morning vigilance. 

As we came back up the south side of the pond I watched the kingfisher for a while; he certainly was making a racket with his rattling cry!  I am still hoping to some day see one catch a fish…  Speaking of racket, the redtail was calling from one side and the crows cawing from the east end.

As we approached the heavy water chestnuts, I was scanning to see if I could spot the busy muskrat (saw him again later as I was bringing the canoe up).  I turned to look ahead in the chestnuts and there was the black back of an otter!  But what’s that big patch of white?  Must have a piece of vegetation stuck on her head.  Dove again, up again, dove again, up again, and still the white.  OH!  It is breakfast!  It has a fish!  It went into the bushes and probably up on shore.  I didn’t bother it by following, but went off to look at more wood ducks.

(More tomorrow - I've got a vid of the harvester working on the water chestnuts that I'll post tomorrow)