Muskrat On The Reservoir

 

I arrived at Sudbury Reservoir to check on an eagle nest on October 20th. There were no eagles. I set myself up along the shore, in hopes that I would catch the moment when one flew in. As I approached the water, I flushed a flock of ring-necked ducks, which flew quickly, all the way to the other side of the lake. I must have waited on the shore for about 5 minutes before I saw some movement in the water, gliding along the surface, towards me...

A muskrat was looking for food, swimming parallel to the shore. I've seen this behavior a few times before. Muskrats search the shallow water for aquatic plants to eat. It soon found a spot, up on land to eat. I lied down to get to eye level, and slowly inched closer, and closer through the mud.

The muskrat quickly finished it's meal, and headed in my direction, almost completely ignoring me.

To my shock, it came up on shore only about 2 feet away from the end of my camera. This is TOO CLOSE for my camera to focus. I army crawled backwards in the mud, and pressed myself against the ground as low as possible. There were some maple leaves in the way of my lens, because my camera was tucked against the ground. The leaves blurred, adding blurry pops of orange.

The very close distance allowed me to really get clear footage of the muskrat feeding. Here, I believe it had a Vallisneria plant in its hands. Notice how fast it's hands are moving, to push it along it's mouth. Also take a look at it's long fingernails. These are for digging, and protect the muskrat's hands while they spend long periods of time digging den tunnels into rocky riverbanks.

The muskrat moved one final time, as I got up, and continued to take photos from further back, in the brush. This time, it waddled awkwardly, about 5 feet up onto land.

It tucked in it's head, and fell asleep. 

From this point on, I kept my distance. Not only because I didn't want to wake it up, but also because I suspected the animal was sick. No muskrat I have ever seen before was this relaxed around humans. Usually, they swim off when approached, and stay away from shore as long as people are nearby, for safety. I guessed at first that this might be a sign that hibernation is coming up, but it turns out that muskrats do not hibernate, and instead are active all winter, except when the water freezes over. In that case, the muskrat will live in its den until the surface thaws, and feed on cached food. Sometimes they spend these frozen periods inside beaver lodges, living off of their food, and conserving body heat by living with their close cousins. I explored the reservoir for a little while, hoping that either the muskrat would wake up, or one of the eagles would return to the nest. 

The nesting island of the bald eagle pair

A trio of double crested cormorants sharing a rock

After a bit, an eagle finally arrived at the nest, with a fish, and ate it over the course of around 15 minutes...

Then, it hopped to a nearby snag, and perched there for a while...

                                the eagle seemed to have settled down as well, and hadnt left it's perch after about a half hour, so I left.