Hello everyone,
We had quite an interesting walk, both because of the birds and because of a couple interesting mammals.
But first, the birds. A large and gorgeous Red-tailed Hawk flew over us while we were on the south bridge and then perched in a tree where it was being harassed by crows. Poor thing. We were excited to find Eastern Bluebirds on an island in the west lagoon. We had a lot of Downy Woodpeckers, American Robins, Dark-eyed Juncos and European Starlings, and the Starlings were looking beautifully iridescent green. There were also a large number of very pretty Northern Cardinals, both male and female. And we just made our winter goal of having more bird species than birders.
As we were nearing the end of the meadow, Caterina, who had walked ahead, came hurrying back to tell us that there was a beaver or muskrat on the ice up ahead. We had seen several signs of beaver damage along the way so we assumed that it was probably the beaver. When we got to the spot there was a cute brown rodent sitting on the ice, drinking water. After a few minutes it sunk down under the water and a couple people got a look at its tail, and declared that it was a muskrat as it did not have the big, flat beaver tail.
We then proceeded to the Music Bridge where we discovered our next critter. A beaver, definitely a beaver, was on the east side of the weir, the wall that manages the harbor water flowing into the lagoons. It did not look very happy and we wondered if it might be trapped and unable to climb over the weir to get back to the lagoon. Leslie sprung into action. She gathered up some fallen branches and the top of an evergreen tree and scampered down the embankment on the north side of the bridge. She gingerly walked over the ice and laid the branches on the edge of the weir, with one end on the ice below, creating a ladder that the beaver could use to escape. We left, hoping that the beaver would figure out what to do, if indeed it was trapped. We ended our walk worrying about the beaver.
A couple hours later Mike decided to go back over to the park to check on our furry friend. Here is his account of what he found:
Today around 3pm I went back to check on the beaver. When I got to the bridge he or she was active, but seemed distressed, basically pacing back and forth along the curved wall. In the photos you can see a narrow line of open water at the base of the wall; it’s exactly the width of the beaver’s tail, and I think he or she melted that ice trudging back and forth. It was totally focused on getting over to what was west of the wall. Again and again it swam strongly to the middle, gnawed some ice off, hauled itself up on the ice, reached up the wall as high as it could on its back legs, and seemed to want to pull itself to the top; swam back to the corner where we saw it, hauled itself out, and looked around and did some nervous grooming. It walked past Leslie’s tree limbs time after time without seeming to notice them. It seemed to me that tonight with upper 30’s and rain due, the ice and tree limb ramp might soon give way. Once during its rounds it bumped into the Christmas tree and sniffed a branch but then went right back in the water.
Finally, a half hour later, on one pass it bumped into one of the limbs, the north heavy one—and this time the beaver looked up and seemed to see the limb leading to the top of the wall, and something clicked, and it started up that north limb. It didn’t look like a real tree climber. At one point it got one foot on the next limb, and got two more steps up straddling those two limbs. The limbs were shifting a little and I held my breath that they wouldn’t collapse; somehow the beaver got splayed across the middle two thinner limbs and got closer to the top that way. In the end it made it to the top by shimmying up just the longest limb, its belly to the bark, like Mowgli going up for a coconut. I took the first photo two seconds after that.
All of our concern, and Leslie’s great idea, helped the beaver get back to his or her life.
Leslie is our hero!!
BIRDERS: Luther, Mike, Lucy, Paul, Leslie, Cheryl, Marian, Caterina, Jennie, Kristin, Mark C., Val, Eric, Margalit, Marisa, Darby, Maddy, Pam, Renate, and a brief appearance by Jane.
TIME: 8:00am to 11:15am
WEATHER: High 20s, cloudy
Compiler: Cheryl
Photographers: Leslie, Marisa, Eric, Paul, Mike
Link to Flickr album, including photos of the muskrat and beaver:
Canada Goose Number observed: 51
Mallard Number observed: 7
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) Number observed: 2
Ring-billed Gull Number observed: 3
American Herring Gull Number observed: 2
Red-tailed Hawk Number observed: 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker Number observed: 2
Downy Woodpecker Number observed: 7
American Crow Number observed: 6
Black-capped Chickadee Number observed: 7
White-breasted Nuthatch Number observed: 2
Winter Wren Number observed: 1
European Starling Number observed: 20
Eastern Bluebird Number observed: 4
Hermit Thrush Number observed: 1
American Robin Number observed: 15
House Sparrow Number observed: 3
House Finch Number observed: 4
American Goldfinch Number observed: 10
Dark-eyed Junco Number observed: 14
Northern Cardinal Number observed: 10
If you’d like more information about a bird, check out the All About Birds ID guide:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/
Corrections, additions, and comments are welcome.
Good birding everyone,
Jennie
Photo: White-crowned-Sparrow by Geri Kodey