Vacation visit

ORRINGTON – During the week of school vacation a group of exuberant children from the Y vacation camp came for an outdoor field trip. With great enthusiasm on a rainy warm day, 19 children went on an excursion to see what they could find. In three groups they followed Nature Center volunteers into the woods and fields of Fields Pond Audubon Center. Some of the children had been here before with their school classes and they wanted to show some of the other Y students wonderful sights they remembered. One student was determined to revisit the marsh area where he had seen beaver activity last spring. Their guide led the group up the length of the property to explore where the beavers had been. More than a dozen new stumps were found clustered at the edge of the marsh. Evidence that the beavers are indeed still active!

Choosy beavers

The beavers had actually been quite choosy. They had taken down only willow trees, leaving the birch and alder. It seems that there is definitely a preference in food by these resident beavers. The pointy willow stumps range in diameter from about 2 inches to nearly 6 inches. Teeth marks clearly show where a beaver gnawed its way through the trunks of the trees. The tops of the trees are all neatly shorn off (and missing) while piles of wood chips surround each stump. Beavers eat the tips of the branches and bark of trees, but they leave chunks of the less nutritious heartwood of the tree behind.

A Yeti at Fields Pond?

Always interested in what students have found on the property, two other staff members went to see the evidence too. On our way to the beaver feeding site we kept our eyes open for other signs of animal activity. The usual mouse tunnels and deer footprints were melting back in the warm temperatures but then we discovered an amazing sight! A GIANT human-shaped footprint! Measuring nearly 16 inches long by about 6 inches wide the track print was in the shape of a barefoot human, footprint and even showed 5 toes! “A Yeti”, we exclaimed! Do we really have a Yeti at Fields Pond? Not likely. Whenever you find a footprint, the first thing to do is look for others around it. In this case there was only the one track. When there is only one track it is likely that the culprit is natural melting or, what we scientifically call “snow plops”. A tree or shrub may drop a blob of snow that makes an impression in the snow. In this case, a snow plop or two may have landed. Combine that with some natural melting in a perfect arrangement and you get quite an impressive track! We may not have a Yeti on the property, but it is always fun to find unusual prints in the snow.

Send sightings, comments, or questions to fieldspond@maineaudubon.org