There is no sign of beaver activity in the park. I've no idea where they have gone, but I hope they are happy there. It'll be interesting to see how long it is until they return, or others move in to the park.
Meanwhile there are Baltimore Orioles, Orchard Orioles, and lots of other birds in the park. Why not stop by and see why the local baseball team picked those colors for their uniforms?
A Blue-gray Gnatcatcher has built a nest in a tree close to the Nature Center. Extra credit if you can find it as they are well disguised nests.
Beginning of a Chickadee nest. 17 May 2014.
And the camera is still out there. Last week I tried to capture an Eastern Bluebird on film and failed. I think because the camera was too far away from the nest box. Poking around today, I found the beginning of a Carolina Chickadee nest in one of the boxes. They are beautiful nests, made mostly of moss.
If I'm lucky, I will have some fun videos of a pair of Chickadees building a nest and feeding their young. Stay tuned.
And this time the dam is gone gone. Every single stick of it it gone.
You might remember the heavy rain we had last Wednesday. As you can see from the stream data that rain caused very high water. And that washed away the dam.
I poked around the area and saw no signs that the beavers are still there. I looked in what I believe was their bank den and didn't see any tracks.
This is, of course, very disappointing, but not really surprising. Twice before in the last three years, beaver dams have been destroyed by flash floods in the park. Those flash floods, and the damage they do, are one of the reasons that Maryland has adopted a stormwater fee. But you probably know that already, don't you.
Please let me know if you see any beaver sign along Minebank Run.
I just read a fascinating story in a recent Bay Journal. It discusses, among other things, the positive impact that beavers have had on the bay. Here is a link: http://www.bayjournal.com/article/core_sediments_reveal_when_a_wetter_bay_was_wildly_healthier
Meanwhile, back at the ranch....Last Sunday I took the youth of my church to the park to see what there was to see. We looked at the camera and they held a vote on where they would like to place the camera. They chose an animal den on the slope about 40 yards from the dam, on the east side of the run.
We captured some videos that I hope you will enjoy.
19 April 2014. The dam is in the right background.
It's a beautiful spring day.
The dam is still there, and survived the recent heavy rains intact.
While I was looking around at the dam, I noticed a large log, probably five inches diameter and five or six feet long leaning against the front of the dam. It struck me that it was too big for one of the beavers to have put it there. I thought probably a person did.
Later, at home, I checked the pictures.You'll never guess, even in a million years. Turns out that a beaver did move that log. Look closely at the sequence below, of three photographs taken only seconds apart. You'll see that the log is being moved by a beaver. The beaver itself is barely visible on the left end of the log. It's barely more than a gray shadow, but it's there.
The other animals in the park are also out and about. The bluebirds and tree swallows are starting to nest in the boxes. I believe some have laid eggs already. Enjoy the pictures.
Wow, I'm knocked off my pins, thrown for a loop, and otherwise quite pleasantly surprised.
It seems that several people other than me didn't like the fact that my camera was stolen. So they passed the hat around and collected enough cash to buy me a new one.
I really am at a loss for words. Thank you very much, I am very grateful for your generosity.
So, we're back in business.
The dam. 6 April 2014.
The dam is still there, and still looking very strong.
The pond is getting active with the spring weather. I noticed several water striders and one turtle enjoying the still water of the pond. Not to mention several people.
I also noticed how clear the water is downstream of the dam. Part of the reason for that is that the dam acts as a silt fence. A silt fence installed at no expense to the taxpayers, I might add.
I took this photograph just upstream of the dam. Perhaps you can see the silt collected by the dam. You can also see tracks left by the beaver as it swam to the dam, probably to add leaves and sticks to it. The tracks run through the stream bottom from lower right to upper left.
Beaver ponds have an effect on aquatic insects because they slow down the water flow. Some insects like to live in fast water, and others on slow water. (http://www.ecology.info/beaver-invertebrates.htm) So, I anticipate that a stream like Minebank Run which is primarily fast water will see a wider variety of insects with the dam than without.
It's hard to tell from this photograph, but the dam is longer, and I think a little higher than it has ever been. Some water had been flowing around the dam on the the east side. The dam is now about 10 feet longer in that direction, and almost rises over the bank.
The dam on the west side is also longer, but not as dramatically as on the other side. The water level also seemed higher than I recall. That may have something to do with spring ice melt.
Another view of the dam. 23 March 2014.
The beavers also built up the entrance to their den. There had always been some sticks around it, but only a very few. Now there is a real structure, and the hole in the stream bank is completely covered. I wonder if that has something to do with preparation for birth. But then again, I may be anthropomorphizing.
Most sources say that we can expect to see the kits born in May or June.
Meanwhile, as you can see below, they are still active, and still cutting trees, eating, and building their dam.
In several of the videos, raccoons appeared, Including a video of two raccoons together. As you may know, raccoons eat almost everything they can get their paws on. They eat insects, worms, fish, crayfish, nuts and bird eggs, among other things. Their territory size varies, but in rich habitat such as Cromwell Valley Park seems to be about 2/10th of an acres. While looking up some information about raccoons, I ran across a great explanation of their behavior. One researcher observed that "typically you'll find 10 to 15 percent who will do the opposite" of predicted behavior. I guess those animals didn't read the manual.
As you can see in this photograph, melting snow combined with some rain, overwhelmed and breached the dam.
I thought it might be fun to see if I could capture some videos of the beavers repairing the breach. So, I put the camera in a location overlooking the breach and aimed it in such a way that I thought would do exactly that. I was exactly wrong.
Apparently the beavers were able to swim up to and repair the breach without triggering the motion detector on the camera.
The dam. 9 March 2014.
Four videos are posted below.
The first two are fun to watch. You'll see that a groundhog likes to use the dam as a bridge to cross Minebank Run. With the dam intact, that's one happy groundhog. With the dam breached it's not such a happy critter.
The third video shows one of our beaver pair swimming about in the pond.
The fourth shows a pair of ducks swimming about in the beaver pond.
Which reminds me of a fact revealed by a study in Yellowstone National Park.
"Increases in beaver populations have strong implications for riparian hydrology and biodiversity –Wyoming streams with beaver ponds have been found to have 75 times more abundant waterfowl than those without." http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2011/dec/yellowstone-transformed-15-years-after-return-wolves
