Walking On Puffer Pond

     The beaver pond located in Assabet River Wildlife Refuge "Puffer Pond" (Maynard, MA) has been solidified as a result of our recent 15 degree nights. A layer of ice, with less than an inch of hardened snow on top of it, covered the whole pond. The ice, fortunately, supported my weight. I followed the tracks of hikers who clearly were wearing spikes. Their tracks soon turned around, probably worried by the spots where the snow looked a darker shade of grey. I then ran into a trail of raccoon tracks.

The tracks looked large for a raccoon though, and almost looked bear-like. I am very used to seeing raccoon tracks though, so I wasn't worried. Maybe that's why the hiker went back. Me and my dad saw the same thing about 4 years ago, on Bebe pond when it was frozen. Don't they look like a small bear just passed by?

I then set my sights on a distant beaver lodge, which I wandered over to. According to Mass Audobon's website, beaver lodges emit steam on cold winter days. I guess today is an exeption, because I looked closely, and did not see anything. Maybe the beaver's body heat isn't there to produce the steam, and they are instead dead, or living in the other lodge, even further from land. 

The Amercan Beaver must be a very well adapted, tough animal, because with the whole river frozen over, they must have to hold their little breaths so often and for so long. It must be pitch black under the water. I guess they probably just follow whatever light is shining under there to find spots to breath, where the ice has a hole or is thin enough to break. Poor things must be absolutely starving.

I thought the patches of dried frozen reeds and grass, along with the massive Eastern White Pine snags, killed when the water level was raised by the beaver family, were really cool looking against the snow. I'll finish the post with these two landscape photos: