Giants in the Earth, the Castor Canadensis Edition

 I have new thoughts on the Mattebasset River. The title of this entry refers to Ole Rølvaag's novel about Norwegian homesteaders in the Dakotas.  The novel ends rather bleakly when the promised land turns out to have some hard edges.

Gusty wind is predicted, but I make an early enough start that I seem to have evaded it.  Putting in, it is already in the 40's and warming with a very light wind.  The Mattebasset is my go-to river for windy weather, being well protected by hillsides and trees. The water is high, the result of flooding in the Connecticut River, which this river joins just a few miles down.  In this reach of the Connecticut, there is a shortage of riverside marshes and tributaries to absorb high water events. Today, the water is about 5 or 6 ft above normal.  Five days ago, there was another 8 feet of water in here! This is an important detail for today's entry. 

I cut the river bank through a narrow bit of shallowly flooded forest into the Hummingbird Marsh.  It is worth the effort as I spot my first Osprey of the spring, high overhead circling and hovering, on the hunt. Two more Osprey arrive a few seconds later.  I also flush several Wood Ducks as I edge the more open water at the edge of the marsh.

The Mattebasset has always been a good place to come for the chance beaver sighting.  There are usually a few lodges to find and lots of beaver sign - scent mounds, gnawings, and downed trees.  It is unusual in that it lacks stability as a beaver habitat.  While there are always beaver here, lodges don't last very long and it is rare that any lodge gets enlarged enough to show that there is an active and producing colony.  And, that gets back to the high water that I mentioned.  

At first glance, whether or not you are a beaver, this river seems to be ideal habitat.  I can imagine a newly arrived beaver writing home to the folks to tell them of the forty acres of bottom land forest with running water and no competition for territory, sort of like Rølvaag's settlers when they arrived in the Dakotas. Unfortunately, once a year, if they are lucky, the river will flood.  And it will not flood just a little, but rather the water will rise up until it is five, six or ten feet above the top of the beaver lodge.  This forces the beaver out of the safety of the lodge.  If the flood is short lived, the beaver might return to their lodge, but more often the flood lasts a week or more.  At that point, the beaver will abandon the ruins and build a new lodge.  And, if that keeps happening, as it has recently with two or three flood events per year, the beaver move on.  

The Point Lodge - only 2 feet exposed.  It is a 4 foot tall lodge.
The water level was about 8 feet higher five days ago.
I expect that this lodge will be abandoned.

This is without considering the need to reproduce.  Beaver have kits in late winter or early spring. They have a set each year and the kits are allowed to stay until their second year, at which point they are pushed out and must go colonize new territory.  With two or three floods each year, reaching a stable colony has to be very difficult, and based on the rarity of large lodges, it's probably not often happening in the Mattebasset. 

I make it down to the Coginchaug River just as the wind arrives.  It has come up quickly, and rather than head up into the Coginchaug, I turn back.  This is the wrong side of the wide open marsh considering the wind.  I spot an adolescent Bald Eagle on the return. It has the white head and tail, but still has light blotches on the body. I pass the put in and head up as far as the railroad trestle, which I manage to pass without portaging.  And that is far enough for the day.  I head back out.