November 5, 2023: Beaver Scent Mounds

Here we are in early November and we just had our first frost at the lake.  And that was just barely, with frost fomring only in open areas subject to radiational cooling with a clear view of the sky.  Leaves on the ground and small plants had just a tinge of frozen ice crystals on their surfaces.

The first frost on November 2nd.

I was surprised to find ice in the shallow marshes around the lake where the surface had cooled enough for a skim of ice to form.

First ice on the lake. 

On a hike on Leighton Mountain in the Chemung area there were even a few icicles that had formed from water dripping off a ledge.

On that same ledge was an obvious cave where an animal was probably sleeping as we went by.

 Fresh dirt pushed out of the entrance shows it's an active den.

It looks like a nice warm and secure home deep in the hillside, though I don't know whose home it is.  It's in the right location for a porcupine, but there was no scat at the entrance, and no signs of trees stripped of their bark around the den.  It appears too small for a bear den, and too far from water for a racoon.  Fox like better hidden areas with concealed entrances.  So I'm guessing a bobcat lives here.  It's too far away for me to trek back and forth with a trail camera, but maybe this winter I can go back when there's snow on the ground and look for tracks.  

On a walk near the lake I noticed an area where beaver had been coming on shore apparently to mark territory, so I placed my camera there to see if I could catch the claimer of the land.  Sure enough, the very next night, at 1:30 am, the beaver appeared.

A beaver collects material for a scent mound.

The camera recorded a short video of it doing its thing.  It collected an armful of leaves and pine needles, and formed them into a small pile.  It then climbed over the pile and deposited its scent right on top.  The whole process took about 20 seconds.  

Beavers have a set of glands called castor glands that produce castoreum, a highly aromatic substance they use for marking territory.  (The strong smell makes it a common ingredient in cosmetics.)  If you turn the volume up you can hear the beaver release the castoreum at five seconds into the video.

One of my walks this week found me at a beaver pond which has created the right habitat for a heron rookery.  Their nests look like large tangles of sticks at the tops of dead trees.  

Three Great Blue Heron nests are visible in the treetops at the far side of the pond.

The dammed-up pond dammed flooded the roots of the trees, killing them, creating the ideal platform for herons to nest and raise their young.  Beavers create valuable environmental benefits for many animals including birds, amphibians, reptiles, and humans.

Another week has passed without any sightings of the juvenile loons LuLu and Checkers, so I think it's time to say they have left the lake.  We will never know if they return after their four or five years spent on the Atlantic Ocean.  My last sighting of them was October 21st.

My last picture of LuLu or Checkers.

In an interesting coincidence, October 21st is the exact same date of the last sighting of the chicks Coca and Jimmy in 2021.  Lake Wicwas has now successfully fledged ten loons over the past six years.

I'll close with one more autumn moment from my hike on Leighton Mountain, a pretty scene looking over Randlett Pond.

Randlett Pond.

A bit of fall remains, but the drab of November is almost here.