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MV Nature
Another Year in the Life of the Spring Farm Beaver Colony part 2 story & photos by matt perry
Part one of the beaver’s 2019 story left off with the beaver dam at the main pond seriously damaged and the beavers trying hard to fix it. Meanwhile, Lydia and Roddy, the resident pair of Canada Geese, had begun nesting on the platform at the mostly drained main pond.
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Strong winds on April 12th blew away the down feathers Lydia used to line her nest. Fortunately, her feathers are a renewable resource. She plucked some more out of her breast and relined the nest. Roddy’s job was to defend the territory from predators and would-be usurpers. He watched for threats coming by air and by water. His demeanor would change whenever his mate stirred or stood upon the nest. Her movement would make him suddenly snap to attention, look around the pond, and assess it for potential threats. When she came off the nest to feed or to bathe, he became extremely agitated and would start honking. He would quickly swim to her and, like an overzealous bodyguard, he would threaten any creature that came within a five-yard radius.
After not seeing her for three days, Tippy finally came out in the late afternoon on April 13th. I was anxious to know if she had given birth to kits. Of course, inside a lodge with exposed entrances, it would be a challenge for her to keep newborn kits safe. The possibility of new kits provided great incentive for the beavers to repair the dam and bring
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the water levels back up. Besides bolstering the dam, they added mud and other materials to the lodge. They dredged out the channel leading up to the lodge and effectively lowered their entrance ways. Repairs on the dam caused water levels to rise and soon the reworked lodge entrances were submerged. By April 17th, the beavers were becoming even more active in their extended territory.
By April 19th, GenLo wasn’t being seen, but his work was much in evidence. He began making a brand-new pond by damming the east/west stream that feeds Wick’s Pond. He had worked on a few small pond and canal projects on that stream before, but this time his designs were grander in scale. He was building a serious pond. He and his young apprentices worked by night and made a dam that bisected the flood plain. The pond quickly took shape and was picturesque in its setting. I named it “Julia’s
The beaver’s patch on the dam
A yearling beaver feeds on Pussy Willow blossoms
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During the final week of April, most of the beavers ceased coming out in the afternoons. A few of the youngsters were still emerging, but not the adults. Tippy finally came out on the evening of the 25th. She came onto the beach, walked up to me, stood up, and asked for her potato. She appeared to be lactating which meant there were likely beaver kits in the lodge. At this point, the lodge entrances were barely underwater. Work on the dam patch at Morton’ Pond was continuing, but the water level had stalled at about two feet below normal high levels. Meanwhile, Julia’s Pond was steadily increasing in size and depth.
GenLo had begun work on a lodge at Julia’s Pond. From its foundation, it looked like it was going to be a large structure. Only time would tell if the beavers were planning on moving to this pond. During the first week of May, several beavers were coming out in the afternoon at the main pond. Adults were being seen sporadically. I imagined that Tippy was busy inside the lodge caring for new kits. As for the resident geese, Lydia was still sitting on her eggs and Roddy remained on perpetual guard duty. On May 10th, the goslings hatched. I could see one yellow chick standing next to its still brooding mother on the nest platform. By afternoon both parents and eight goslings were walking around on the west bank of the main pond. After that, we lost track of them. Evidently, the goose family moved away from the property and they didn’t even say goodbye! I wasn’t too sur prised since they did the same thing in 2018. Last year, I speculated that a large resident snapping turtle was the reason they left and sure enough, the same turtle was again active at MorRoddy – the male resident Canada Goose
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During the final week of May, both Tippy and GenLo were being seen at Morton’s Pond in the afternoons. I was sure that Tippy had kits inside the lodge by this point, but I had yet to see one. It’s typical for new kits to remain in the lodge for over a month and so I had no expectation of seeing them any time soon. Before the start of June, the water level at Morton’s Pond was now afoot below its historic high point, which was a remarkable achievement and a testament to beaver perseverance and engineering skill. One day, I got a rare view of both beaver parents sitting together while they fed on fresh poplar leaves. At this time, the yearling beavers had become very visible, and so I decided to name them. In keeping with the custom of recent years, I named a few after wetland flora. The names were: Bugbane, Bogbean, Water Beetle, Damselfly, and Chub. As for the new kits inside the lodge, they remained a closely guarded secret.
On July 8th I made the sad discovery of a dead beaver kit at Morton’s Pond. The
Roddy has pale eyebrows
kit’s lifeless body was floating on top of the branch pile near the beaver blind. I removed it from the pond. Upon close inspection there didn’t seem to be any injuries or obvious cause of death. It is possible that the kit drowned. Drowning is a hazard for young beaver kits on their first journeys out of the natal lodge chamber. They follow a parent or older sibling into the pond, but then must face the daunting challenge of getting back inside the lodge via the underwater entrance. At this point in their lives, they are inexperienced holding their breath for extended periods.
The new kit did confirm that Tippy had young in the lodge, but just how many were in the litter remained a mystery. On July 12th another of the season’s new beaver kits was seen. This one followed closely behind Tip py as she made a quick trip in and out of the lodge. To me, it looked like a training session. The next day, I watched a new kit follow GenLo all the way to the beaver blind before diving and heading back to the lodge.
During the third week in July, most beavers were coming out of their lodge in the early to mid-afternoon time frame. The new kit was coming out with increasing frequency. Usually, it tried in vain to grab treats from its siblings or parents. It begged at GenLo and pawed the food he was holding, but his father kept pushing him away. Beavers aren’t generous with treats once they have them in their paws. As
it happens, even a small kit will get nothing from its parent. Once a kit leaves the lodge, it must find its own food in the pond.
Beavers partake in mutual grooming, but it’s something I hadn’t seen happen in a while. I suspect it happens more often at night and/ or inside the lodge. Mutual grooming may take place between any two members of the colony. This time, I had a front-row seat to watch Tippy and one of the yearlings as they groomed each other in front of the beaver blind. As is typical, the two adopt a “yin and yang” position, side by side and facing oppo site directions. Having adopted this position, they then gently comb the fur on each other’s flanks using their oversized incisors.
Heavy rains on August 16th tested the beaver dams. The dam patch at Morton’s Pond held but the new dam at Julia’s Pond failed and water levels there dropped to about 1/6 capacity. As it happened the dam breach was not catastrophic. New dams are much less involved structures; they tend to be easy to break and easy to fix. Sure enough, GenLo and his apprentices had the dam re paired and the pond was back to normal in less than twenty-four hours. Despite all the work taking place at Julia’s Pond and vicin
ity, the colony was still residing at Morton’s Pond and it was there in the late afternoon on August 20th, that I finally saw four new beaver kits out at the same time.
During the first week of September, there was suddenly a large new beaver lodge rising from the south side of Julia’s Pond. The lodge was over four feet high and still under construction. At this time, I felt confident that we had five new kits for the season. In early October, another flash flood event ruptured the dam at Julia’s Pond. The water levels fell nearly a foot, but the dam and pond were completely restored by the next day. Logging in the Aspen grove suddenly increased during this period. A couple of 50-foot trees were toppled, and five other large ones were cut into. Beavers were also taking Pussy Willow, large Gray Birches, and some medium-sized Yellow Birches. Once on the ground, limbs were stripped from the trunks and taken to the pond. Larger tree trunks were being cut into roughly four-foot sections and dragged away. Moving pieces that big is a remarkable demonstration of strength. A beaver’s strength as well as its heftiness, allows them to transport very large objects. They use their weight to tug and lever the materials they need to shift. An adult beaver moves large trunk pieces by gripping them with his teeth and heaving them forward a little at a time. The discovery of a food cache under construction at Julia’s Pond confirmed the beavers’ intentions of over-wintering at that pond. By mid-month, every
The beaver dam at Morton’s Pond
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Mallard hen with ducklings
large Aspen tree in the grove had been bitten into and earmarked for the food cache. The beaver’s method of partially cutting multiple trees simultaneously instead of fully cutting them down one at a time is an energy-saving technique and a way to get more food for less effort. Partially cut trees are made vulnerable to being toppled in windstorms and any tree that comes down that way saves a beaver the effort in cutting it all the way through.
It was becoming clear that the beavers were inhabiting two ponds – Morton’s Pond and Julia’s Pond. The ponds were about five acres away from each other and were located on two different streams This hadn’t happened before with our colony. There was still a lot of communication between the two ponds. Beavers were showing up at Morton’s Pond for treat time, but how long was that going to continue?
Just before Halloween, the beavers began coming out in the mid to late afternoon at Morton’s Pond. It was becoming clear that despite all the amazing work that had taken place at Julia’s Pond, the primary pond where the beavers were residing was still Morton’s Pond. I believe that GenLo was making a strong push to move the colony to the new pond, but cooperation wasn’t forthcoming. That’s not to say that beavers weren’t traveling there and possibly even spending nights there. I was seeing beavers including some of the kits there, but the next day, all would be back at Morton’s Pond, including GenLo. It’s obviously of great importance that the beavers overwinter at a pond that has a food cache, otherwise a harsh winter may not be survivable. It’s just as well that the beavers still had a lingering allegiance to Morton’s Pond. On Halloween, the stream that feeds Julia’s Pond swelled well out of its banks. The dam at Julia’s Pond was ruptured again and the pond lost ¾ of its volume. With the water so low, I was able to examine the dredging work the beavers had done in the pond basin. A check of the dam afterward showed that it was repairable, and within a day, water levels were back up to near-normal.
An interesting thing to come out of the Halloween flood was a new beaver kit. An orphan of unknown origin was
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suddenly part of the colony. Obviously, she had been adopted by our beavers since she was seen going in and out of the lodge and interacting with the other beavers causally. Actually, it was being largely ignored which is pretty much how beavers in a colony treat each other most of the time. The orphan was quite small and younger than our beaver kits by a couple of months. I speculated that the new beaver kit had been separated from her colony by recent heavy rains and high water. Of course, its family could’ve been trapped by people or otherwise intentionally displaced from their habitat. That kind of fate is more often the rule than the exception for beaver colonies. To begin with, the new kit was painfully shy, and I would only get short glimpses of her. However, only a few weeks later, she was bold enough to come out of the water and take sweet potato pieces from my hand.
As for Tippy’s own kits, a few of them occupied themselves with cutting up the branches I brought to the main pond and sinking them into that pond’s food cache. It probably wasn’t a bad idea. If there came an early ice-over and beavers get marooned there, at least there will be some food to sustain them. Meanwhile, in the Aspen grove, the wind took down a few of the
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Beaver mutual grooming session Jasmine Yuzik brings a poplar branch to the beaver pond
trees the beavers had partially cut. The grove was strewn with large logs, mostly laying east to west. The beavers were clearcutting the grove – taking willow and birch as well as the large Aspens. All but the largest of the big trunk pieces were being dragged off and sunk into the ample food cache at Julia’s Pond.
By the end of the first week of November, we had our first real cold snap. There were about three inches of snow on the ground and all the ponds except for Morton’s Pond were completely covered by ice. One might assume the beavers would be all be at Julia’s Pond after all the work that’s been done there, but they were not. Possibly the entire colony was at Morton’s Pond. I brought them some of the usual produce and some branches. Most of the kits were coming right up to the shore to get their treats. Several would walk out of the water and take potatoes and carrots from my hand. Although most were gentle about taking theirs, a few would do a short charge at me and then slap the treat out of my hand before grabbing it and diving back into the water.
Of the colony, it was clear that GenLo was the keenest to be at Julia’s Pond. Any chance he would get, he was back over there working on his projects. Probably with the
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Woodchuck at the beaver pond
help of kits, he made a series of small ponds and canals upstream and downstream from Julia’s Pond. To me, GenLo’s anxiety about the colony’s unwillingness to relocate was tangible. He was going back and forth a lot and I think he expected at some point that everyone would just stay at the new location, given its large food cache and spacious lodge.
In terms of conditions on the ground, in mid-November, winter arrived. Temperatures dropped into the mid-teens and all beaver ponds froze up tight. As is usually the case, Morton’s Pond remained ice-free at its inflow. I broke holes in the ice at Morton’s Pond and at Julia’s Pond, since I wasn’t sure which pond the beavers were staying in. One day, GenLo and a young kit were at Julia’s Pond, but all the other beavers including Tippy and the orphan were spending the first freeze-up period at Morton’s Pond. This was the new kits’ first experience with ice, and they seemed to revel in it. They tried breaking ice in all different ways: by busting it down with their weight, by battering it from underneath, and by biting at it. My favorite is when they use their heads to torpedo through it from beneath.
At the start of December, the weather
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was decidedly winter-like. Most days were cold, and the ponds were remaining at least partially ice-covered. As far as I could tell, the entire colony was at Morton’s Pond. GenLo seemed to be the only one regularly commuting between Julia’s Pond and the main ponds. The beavers seemed like they weren’t going anywhere. If GenLo was still trying to persuade them to move, it wasn’t working. He used the periods of thawing to return to Julia’s Pond – each time taking at least a couple of kits back with him. I believe his goal was to get his mate Tippy to the new pond, but she seemed to have no interest in moving.
As we moved into mid-December, the weather continued to oscillate between springlike and winter-like and the ice cover on the ponds fluctuated substantially. GenLo was still trying to get the colony to move. One night, the orphan kit went with him and was seen swimming in Julia’s pond the next day. The same kit followed GenLo back to the Morton’s Pond that evening. At that point, Tippy and at
least half of the kits still weren’t interested in leaving, but by Christmas Day, it seemed like the entire colony had finally made the move to Julia’s Pond. I was still checking Morton’s Pond every afternoon and bringing food to the four or five beaver kits (both yearlings and new ones) that remained there. I was also checking Julia’s Pond to see if beavers were coming out there. A few kits came out towards evening, but no beavers were emerging reliably.
The beaver’s year ended with most of the colony installed in a new pond, with the par ent’s pair bond intact, and with at least 11 kits in residence. It remains to be seen if the kits that lingered at Morton’s Pond will continue there or eventually join the others at the new pond. We now look forward to a new year of adventures for the Spring Farm beavers and for all the other wildlife that cohabitates with them in their habitat. •
Matt Perry is Conservation Director and resident naturalist at Spring Farm CARES in Clinton. He manages a 260 acre nature preserve which is open for tours by appointment. Matt is also regional editor of “The Kingbird”, which is a quarterly publication put out by the New York State Ornithological Association. Matt’s short nature videos can be viewed on the web. Look for Spring Farm CARES Nature Sanctuary on Facebook.
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