Beaver Lodge Check-up

An artist friend of mine joined me for the day. When I picked J up, I gave her the choice of looking for Little Blue Herons in a salt marsh, or going inland and checking the status of the Mattabesset beaver since they were flooded out of there lodges in early July. J opted for the Mattabesset.
My a last trip here was July 24, and the flood waters had clearly topped every one of the lodges. The high water, at least the levels that would have affected the lodges, started on July 10 and lasted until July 26, and for the first 10 days, the water level here was at least 10 feet higher than today.

Photo by J... I was busy

We put in at the usual spot, behind the lousy donut shop. The river was a average high - still in the banks, but a foot or two more than I would expect. What was unusual was the stiff current. This river rarely runs much of a current except at few known to me places where there has a slope. The recent thunderstorms must have dumped a good amount in the area upstream, as this river is only 15 miles long. I checked on this later, and the area that these two short rivers drain had received  over 2 inches of rain on the day before.

We head downstream, talking about art stuff, as I usually end up doing with other artists. But, I also start with talks about beaver sign - what lodges look like, what destroyed lodges look like, and other things like scent mounds, cut trees, peeled limbs, drags. We find a good example of a bank burrow across from the Tepee Lodges. It was probably dug as the flood waters receded, and now the entrance is exposed, so it is abandoned. But, it was a good example.  Tepee Lodge 2 is abandoned and collapsed, as it was on my last trip. There's no sign of any new construction anywhere in this area. We spot several Great Blue Herons, and a few Kingfishers and Osprey. Way up high is a noisy Hawk, but it's way too high to identify, except that call is definitely, Hawk. I note right away that J has very sharp eyes and spots distant birds with ease.

We turn up the Cogninchaug. We pass by a lodge remains - looks like a lodge that wasn't finished. The big lodge, named such because it is a BIG lodge, may or may not be in use. It seems to have survived the flood well enough and has kept its size and shape, although the exterior is not as neat as it should be. It's possible that the colony has moved back in, but I won't know until later trips. Upstream we find several drags and a couple of scent mounds.

We paddle up until we get to some blocking deadfall trees, and then turn to head out. Of note, there is a pretty good current running in the lower Coginchaug, which is as unusual as the current in the Mattabesset. 

On the way out we pause so that J can admire a few of the excellent root balls. She identifies the root ball trees as silver maples. All of these root balls have new growth trees sprouting from them, and they are all silver maples.  I hear a Bald Eagle whistling, and find it about a hundred yards off at the net point upstream from us. Most politely, it stays put as we paddle underneath. 

Note on the way that the wild rice crop in this area is as trashed as the crop in the Salmon River. Wild rice grows in shallow water and the flood water was just much too high at just the wrong time. .