Sunday, April 30, 2023

Spring - Swamp Watching

 


Its been a good month camera trapping bears. The tally so far for April is seven different bears. I still have two locations to check next week. Yesterday, I finally found an old chewed deer shed heading into a camera trapping spot. Checking two trail cameras that have been there about a month showed a consistent visit from a coyote during the day and it wasnt skittish about passing by the cameras. I suspect theres a den in the area.

Now that Spring is here, Ive been sitting with my SLR camera watching a swamp come alive. Lots of waterfowl seen with the spring migration north. There is a beaver lodge in view and what a show I got the other day. A Beaver colony typically consists of two adults, two adolescents and two newborn beavers. Late April or early May the two adults will push the two adolescent beavers to leave the lodge. This process can become physically confrontational and vocal, as it did to this morning. It took nearly four hours with both parents continually driving the youngsters away from the lodge for them to finally move on. Things quieted down after that, then two kit beavers were seen swimming around close to the lodge entrance. Just when I thought the excitement was over, a large snapping turtle surfaced about twenty yards from the beaver lodge. Immediately one of the adults moved into the turtles space and persuaded it to move on.

What an awesome morning Swamp Watching.

 Jim

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