Day 11: Carl and the Beavers

Last night was an exciting excursion with my advisory from graduate school, Carl Brett. Carl is visiting to give a talk this week for our Evolutionary Studies seminar on Monday night. I picked Carl up at the airport in Albany and we grabbed a bite at Denny's before we headed back to New Paltz. When we got home I gave Carl a pair of my old boots and we headed out to the pond. We looked for fish a bit and we found a number of bigger and smaller crappie. After a few yards we spotted another fish but this one was a nice pickerel. It was about a foot long or a bit more and I got some good pictures of it. It seems it was sleeping in the shallow water in some longer pond grass. I touched it with a stick and it didn't move so I moved into grab it and it darted away as fast as could be.

From here Carl and I continued around the pond to the outlet and the out to Black Creek. We didn't see any frogs or toads but we did hear a number of peepers across the creek. I am figuring it has been a bit cold for the last week or so and when it starts to warm up again I'm hoping they will come back. Carl was quite interested in the potential of seeing some of the beavers that live out in the creek so I suggested we continue down stream to see the beaver lodge that I had seen from my kayak last fall. This is a bit farther than I'd gone along the stream before and it was worth the slog through the mud.

We saw a number of what I call the beaver canals that head into the wooded edges from the

main creek. We saw lots of nice beaver footprints and heaps of beaver-chewed sticks. Eventually we came right up to the lodge and, boy, it's a big one! The lodge is about 10-15' in diameter and at least 4'high above the creek. There is a deep inlet along the north edge of the lodge that we dipped a stick into and it went down at least 5' before it touched the bottom. Carl and I inspected the lodge and it was very well built and quite strong. As we continued downstream we saw a number of trees the beavers had tried to eat a while back and the trees' bark had grown over the beaver scars.

Finally, we got down to where the abandoned road crossed over Black Creek. It seems my road, South Riverside Road, used to connect with Ose Road to the east and the concrete bridge is still

there along with some slumped macadam paving. I have always like to walk down abandoned roads as I like to imagine what the world would look like if one day we were just all gone, sort of a Postman situation (one of my favorite Kevin Costner movies, yes I know it's just Water World on land, but I still like it...Tom Petty has a sweet cameo). We walked down to the bridge which is still in pretty good shape and then back towards my place. Turns out there is a very nice stone wall in the woods along what looks like an old driveway into our little complex. All in all this was a fun night and it was great to have Carl along, he is a good spotter of wildlife and knows heaps of stuff. Again, if anybody else ever wants to come along for a walk, just let me know.