Puffer Pond - December 23nd

     On a freezing Thursday, I decided to skip school and make a visit to Puffer Pond. Puffer Pond is actually a Beaver pond created by a dam that blocks up a stream (Taylor Brook). Puffer Pond is home to Ducks, Geese, Mergansers, Beavers, Muskrats, Crayfish, Water and Garter Snakes, Spring Peepers, American Bullfrogs, Kingfishers, Red Winged Blackbirds, Sunfish, Pickerel, Painted Turtles, Common Snapping Turtles, Osprey, Tree Swallows, Great Blue Herons, Owls, Turkeys, Raccoons, Whitetail Deer, and Leopard Frogs, just to name a FRACTION of the species I have seen there.

Today, I found a few things, but not many (probably because it was so cold). I literally did not see a single animal. As I walked in at the parking lot though, I began to notice large "Castor Mounds" along the riverbank. American Beavers build these to mark their territory and communicate their power. They produce a very strong musk called Castoreum, which is actually used in some perfumes. The mounds are constructed out of leaf litter, sticks, river mud, and feces.

-Aidan Garrity