May 7, 2008

Finally I took my camera with me on my morning run and now I have pix of the beaver damage.

You might want to click on this one to see it larger. As well, it has notes on it to point out where the hole in the bank of the island is, which may possibly be the beaver's home. The downed trees look like they were a clump of three trunks together before the beavers chewed them through.

A wildlife photographer I am not. However, this bird sat there prettily enough for me, with his red wing patches shining in the sun. Past him is the other end of the island in the pond and it's possible beavers have their home there too. Or maybe the island is honeycombed with tunnels! Except, I don't think beavers make tunnels.

Pretty blossoms in the Spring. Let's hope someone traps and relocates the beaver before he chews all of the trees down.

This is what the construction looks like from the other side of the park

April 16, 2008

More Spring today! By 5pm, we had achieved a temperature of 16C (60F), the sun is shining, the birds are singing. I got my hands dirty in the garden, although I only spent a few minutes out there. It seems my thyme survived being buried under 4 feet of snow and it is growing and green!

Some neighbours were out talking about gardening. One fellow was already raking. I'm not going to rake even after the last of the snow goes because the lawn is too tender right now but it will soon firm up. I talked with another neighbour and she told me that she has actually seen the nefarious beaver in Centrepointe park! She was walking her dogs in January during the big thaw we had then and the animal walked right across the path in front of her. And her dogs went crazy of course. We wondered and don't have an answer for where the beaver came from. But she said it has done even more extensive damage in the park. I may call the animal control people to have it removed to a more suitable location because it isn't doing our trees any good out there.

I notice there is a roof line forming on the first of the new housing units to go up.

There are still unmelted piles of plowed snow all over the place, but most of the rest of the snow has gone.

Except for here on the bike path. I rode out this afternoon to see how far I could get going north to the river. Some of the bike path had been plowed in the winter, as evidenced by the grit all over it. But when I got to the Queensway transit station, it suddenly stopped. I guess they figure no one walks north from the Queensway. I walked the bike over the small bit of snow and ice at the station but when I crossed the road and headed toward the creek, I decided to call it a day when I saw quite a bit of snow still on the path. I could have walked through it but it probably would have gone over the tops of my running shoes and I didn't need wet feet. I figure there must have been one huge drift here, for this fallen (not plowed) snow still to be unmelted.

November 3, 2007, afternoon

It was a lovely day to go for a stroll around the park and see what was new.

Also a lovely day to do a little tai chi.

The geese were out in numbers again, filling up on grass for the journey South.

These four reminded me of the cover of Abbey Road (sort of).

Just past the walking geese, we saw two more little trees that had been felled by beaver. Someone had recently planted them and one even had an anti-rabbit collar around it - not much good against the much bigger rodent Castor Canadensis. Obviously, the beavers are still at large.

We decided to walk right around the pond, to see what else the beavers had been up to. And we wondered where they were living or whether they came in from somewhere else and left during the night (or day). I thought this sign might give me a clue as to whether the pond water had an external source but it didn't really say.

This is the view as you cross the little bridge, if you scrunch down and look through the railing.

And this was a pretty view from the other side of the pond. When I was over there, I realized that never before have I walked around the entire perimeter of the pond.

And this was what we discovered on the other side of the pond, away from the paved path. This was only one of three or four beaver-chewed trees.

When the geese on the pond started calling out, I knew that other geese were heading in to join them. I caught these two with flaps and landing gear down and one on the water with a bow wave.

Goose in motion.

October 21, 2007

Today the high was 22C and it was sunny and windy and especially lovely for October 21. We went for a walk around Centrepointe Park at around 6pm and took the big, complicated camera so Peter could teach me how it works, and so I could take a photo of the beaver-chewed trees. That's right, there are three trees that have been chewed by beavers at the duck pond! What I want to know is - where did those beavers come from? There must be a conduit from the stream the runs by the transitway and it must run under Baseline, otherwise how could they get here?

This is one of two that were completely chewed down and have been marked by the parks people. The other tree is the same size and has been chewed around so it will die but it is still standing.

Other people were out for a walk or a bike or to play a little pick-up soccer but there weren't any geese on the grass.

There were however, plenty in the sky.

Some folks biked over to feed the ducks at the pond.

When we turned around, the setting sun lit up the trees.

More geese flew north to the Ottawa River for the night.

And as the sun went down, it started to cool quickly and we were done for the day.