By Charlie Fineran

Hi Everyone:

STORY BEHIND MY PHOTO OF THE WEEK

Today’s Photo of the Week and story is one of my all-time favorites! I am reaching back into my archives, back to April 23, 2012.  After reading my article, I decided to copy and paste same, everything.  First, I believe you will also enjoy witnessing this adventure as it unfolds.  Second, this is a classic example of the possibilities that MAY OCCUR, on ANY given outdoor visit. Sometimes, just a nice walk and visit with nothing special happening, AND THEN, on the other end of the spectrum everything seems to come out into view, mix and mingle and a story of a lifetime is being performed right in front of your eyes, CLOSE & PERSONAL. I know I say this a lot, “BUT BOY, we live in a BEAUTIFUL  AND SPECIAL Area!”

MOTIS OPERANDI

ENJOY!

Hope you are all well. Today’s visit is one of those classic examples where you start out with one game plan and things just develop into a totally different GREAT ADVENTURE. Remember, visit quality sites and you will always have a wonderful visit.

It is early Tuesday, April 24, there is a pretty stiff breeze and a pretty good cloud cover, BUT, that sun does periodically shine through the cloud cover, hmm’ looks like some ideal conditions for interesting photos. I always enjoy these conditions, the wind masks the noise we create walking through the woods, All the better to come across wildlife’ and the sun popping in and out from the clouds, All the better for some interesting shadows and highlights for photos. “We are wasting time, let’s go.”

Traveling to our destination I am deciding where to visit and formulating a game plan, I know, this sounds a little ____, but, it works for me and it eliminates that annoying, “Are we there yet?”

We are going to visit Coventry Pond, the trail head is near the old mill at Millbrook Village. The pond is a little over a half mile in from Millbrook Rd., the trail was an old road. I hadn’t been here for a while and I wanted to walk around the pond and then follow one of the brooks to see where it ultimately went. (The clouds are heavier than when we departed, it is actually on and off light rain) It is a nice walk into the pond, through woods and looking down over Van Campen’s Brook off to the left, you can see Donkey Hollow Trail, another old road, on the other side of the brook. We are just arriving at the pond area and leaving the woods when I notice some stripped branches of trees and some fresh wood chips and yes, the classic figure eight on some tree stumps, beavers have been busy here. We are approaching and crossing over the earthen dam across the North end of the pond. Nice view of the pond, I then notice a little beaten path to the pond on the right and the same going into the woods off the dam, following this a short distance I notice several small trees down, stripped of branches, that must be a beaver path for dragging branches back to the pond. I am beginning to get distracted from my original “follow that stream plan.”

NOTE: There is an outflow stream near here where the water flows alongside trail where we came in, however, there are other streams not very far away leading into the pond that are coming from the rocky tree covered steep hill. I will go up the steep hill, see what is up there and then work my way south, then drop back down to the other end of the pond. (What was up there?, many rocks, trees, spring fed brooks and still a lot of mountain to go up—I headed South not going up the rest of the mountain).

We are now approaching the South end of the pond, this area has a lot of high reeds and I can see signs of beaver all over. There is a little beaver dam and pond among the reeds at the base of the dam. I climb up the earthen dam and can look down at this small beaver dam amid the reeds. I start to walk across the earthen dam to get to the other side of the pond, but there is a large hole, preventing me from crossing, BUT, the dam is still working retaining the ponds water thanks to NATURE’S ENGINEERS, THE BEAVERS. I begin heading South and I notice a small island with a large beaver lodge, these guys are busy.  When I get adjacent to the little island, I come across another little beaver dam, this little dam actually creates a nice size small pond, this pond is actually a little higher than the Coventry Pond. I am impressed, these guys have created a three tier series of ponds.

Walking along this third small pond I hear a rustling and a splash. Looking into the pond I see a beaver swimming away from shore and then another beaver further out in the pond. NUTS, how could I miss something so close? I was about twenty feet away from the beaver on shore. I am standing talking photos of the two beavers swimming and suddenly the beaver returned and climbed back onshore into the brush am I am still standing there, Let the fun begin. I am trying to keep STILL & QUIET, the wind is blowing my plastic lens cover into the camera making a noise, my ski pole wrapped around my wrist is blowing in the wind and I am trying to get a clear photo of this animal through a lot of reeds To add to this scene, the other poor beaver is swimming back and forth slapping his tail in the water and diving trying to warn his friend that I am standing there. I say ‘POOR BEAVER’, this guy is probably scratching his head in disbelief, here he is doing everything by the “BEAVER BOOK” giving slapping tail alerts, swimming frantically back and forth sending all sorts of alerts and what is his partner doing, checking on her hair, tail and anything else that needed preening. The tail slapping and diving ended after about three attempts, he must have given up, but he did keep swimming back and forth and making approaches towards us before turning away. I was there about twenty minutes and was still looking at the back of a beaver. I am going to try to work my way closer to the shoreline to get a better look, slowly and waiting for wind gusts for some noise, I did manage to go from a six o’clock to a nine o’clock position. I can’t believe this animal doesn’t see me or get my scent, I am upwind from it. I get some close up photos, ok I am going to get moving.  I had the feeling this animal knew I was there, now I am going to do a little experiment, I will make some obvious noise and then move away. “Hey beaver,” I said that about ten times and then started slowly moving away, it never moved nor did it stop whatever it was doing. I had to climb over a fallen tree and then turned around to take a photo, about forty feet away, suddenly a wild turkey gobbled and took off (abt. 10 feet from me). I am now about five feet in the air and the beaver was also startled and went into the pond. I worked my way back to the dam and noticed that the beaver went back to the same place along the shoreline.

Needless to say, I was in a rush to get home and check out the photos. A couple of observations—first I have seen many beaver lodges all over the place in all my travels and very rarely ever saw the beavers.  I consider this a rather unusual setting. My second observation is this, I know these animals are very industrious and tireless workers making all their projects. I also know that preening is also a very important task in keeping them warm and dry. Lastly, in checking my photos, many didn’t come out of the beaver swimming back and forth, the reeds were clear but the beaver in the background was hazy, this also was the case with the beaver in the reeds.

Hope you enjoyed your visit.

I have also included a link to Flickr site which has all the photos connected with this story

Beaver – Coventry Pond, DWGNRA | Flickr

Enjoy Your Open Space,

Charlie Fineran    

Director Open Space
Allamuchy Township Environmental Commission – Chairman  
Allamuchy Historical Society – President