Beavers, Wood frogs, ducks and geese

Happy Easter - and also my birthday this year!

During the week (Tuesday) I heard the faint sound of a wood frog, but then we had a freak snowstorm after heavy warm rain all Tuesday (which almost flowed over the wetlands' crossing culverts!). Today while wandering about the property I can hear a deafening sound of wood frogs. Happy return for them. Since I last posted we have seen a larger beaver several times...out scouting in Beatitude Pond and nibbling on sticks here and there. Still no major construction or renovations, just yet. The beavers are probably too hungry to work just, yet...there is time for that.
River plants have started to poke up and garlic is coming up in the front garden. I also found some young onions I had overlooked in my harvest last year. I planted peas. No black flies, yet!
Other creatures we have seen this week: mallard duck couple, Canada goose couple. Today I saw a red tailed hawk flying over head, some unidentified warbler in a white pine tree, moths flying over the surface of Beatitude Pond, numerous whirly bugs in the ponds, a tick.

Positive I.d on a beaver

This afternoon I noticed a small white pine had been freshly cut and place across the downstream side of the small culvert that joins one pond to the other under our driveway. Later when Lindley and I were out he called over to me that he had spotted a small beaver and it briefly got up on a  bank and showed its characteristic curved outline and fur lined body.
I rushed inside and got some carrots and apples which we put near the shore. He had already returned into the den by the time I returned. Later maybe he will come out for a fresh snack.
So happy to see him after a long and cold winter.

Cold Winter - Bob cat sighting

This winter has been a cold one, a little above average snowfall. Icy driveway, thick ice on pond. In January I saw the bobcat for the first time, though we'd seen evidence of it in the recent past, it's paw prints crossing the beaver pond.
I heard a cracking on the ice one morning and looked up an saw its bobbing tail against the snow.
We are now looking forward to the first days of spring.

Spring returning

After a very long winter, spring is returning bit by bit and all is thawing. The creatures are also returning.
First Robins, then kingfisher, hooded mergansers, wood ducks, muskrats, and possibly a lone beaver, and the first buzz of a tree frog.