March 13, 2022: Muskrat Lodge Revealed

Well, it was revealed - for a couple of days anyway before yesterday's snow came along and buried it again, but still, it's another sign of spring coming.

I found this medium-size muskrat lodge in a marsh near Chemung Road after a few warm days melted away a lot of snow cover in areas exposed to the strong March sun - we're only a week away from the vernal equinox now.  A muskrat family built this lodge over time in much the way beavers build a lodge, but they differ in their construction materials.  Beaver lodges are built primarily of sticks and branches held together with mud from the bottom of the lake, while muskrats use mostly vegetation in their lodge.  Both start as small mounds which are enlarged until they're well above the water level at which point they excavate their home from the inside.  (Both beavers and muskrats are rodents.)

Muskrat lodge in greener days.  Lodges are built close to a plentiful supply of food sources.

A muskrat lodge may start with only one or two rooms, but as the family grows the lodge is expanded and additional rooms added.  The rooms are above the water level so they have dry living quarters, but the entrance is always under water to foil some predators, though mink are excellent swimmers and are the most tenacious predator of muskrats.  Muskrats are active all year; their winter diet consists mostly of the roots of aquatic plants such at cattails, reeds, and arrowheads but they will also eat clams, mussels, snails, and other small animals.  Maybe they'll find an appetite for Chinese mystery snails!

I don't often see muskrats but on occasion I'll find one swimming in the lake in the early morning.  On one occasion, while riding my bike along the road, a startled muskrat ran in ditch beside me for a dozen yards before darting into the safety of a culvert.  Unless there's a point of refence to judge its size - which is considerably smaller than a beaver - or I can clearly see its tail, I have a hard time discerning a muskrat from a beaver.  But, as the name suggests, a muskrat has a thin, rat-like tail rather than the large paddle of a beaver's tail.

The rat-like tail shows this is a muskrat.

Poking around the muskrat lodge this week made it clear that the days of walking on the lake are coming to an end.  There's open water at the shore line wherever the March sun warms a south-facing bank or where a stream runs into the lake.

Anyone trekking onto the lakes now must know where the weak spots are.

There's still 18" of ice in the center of the lake but that consists of only 8" of solid ice with 10" of soft, porous ice that's cut through with just 10 or 12 revolutions of the ice auger.  The recent snowfall will make it even more treacherous to be on the ice - we already had one snowmobile go through the ice on Wicwas, requiring a rescue of the rider.  (Thank you GP for the notification!)  With a forecast of multiple days in the 40s and 50s for the coming week, my lake activities may be done until kayak season arrives.

These gaps will soon enlarge enough to launch a kayak.

And as of this afternoon, those holes are concealed by fresh snow, as was the muskrat lodge.  And look - there were turkeys strutting past the lodge just a short time before I was there.

Turkey tracks at the freshly decorated muskrat lodge.

We had been out in Steamboat Springs last week enjoying a week of Colorado snow, sun, and skiing.  (Thanks for a great visit VP!)

Plenty of snow at 10,000' in northwest Colorado.

I usually try to find wildlife on trips out of New Hampshire but this time I only came across a few birds - no moose, elk, coyote, not even a fox.  But there were plenty of signs they were out, searching along the Yampa River over night for a meal.

A popular place along the Yampa River for Steamboat's predators.

There's a wonderful boardwalk and Peace Pavilion built by the Steamboat Springs Rotary Club along the Yampa River.  I'll close this week with an optimistic yet hopeful sign for today's world which stands at the pavilion.