Tag Archives: Beaver

Seepage slope and bog plants 2025-06-15

Twenty one species in a thousand feet down the Not-a-Driveway from piney woods through seepage slope to beaver pond.

Plus Canis familiaris and garden variety human. While we did not see any beaver, Castor canadensis, there was quite a bit of evidence of them.

Species identifications are by Seek by iNaturalist, which is usually pretty reliable. I do doubt a few of them.

For example, what seek identifies as Pineland hibiscus, Hibiscus aculeatus, sure looks to me like halberd-leaf rosemallow, Hibiscus laevis.

Far more species than these live in our subtropical paradise. These are just the plants (and fungi) I happened to focus on today.

BB

[Ten-angled pipewort or bog button, Eriocaulon decangulare, 2025:06:15 09:52:26]
Ten-angled pipewort or bog button, Eriocaulon decangulare, 2025:06:15 09:52:26

Continue reading →

Wild Azalea and Wood Storks 2023-01-31

An early spring sight, and something more unusual.

[Wood Storks and Wild Azalea, OPF 2023-01-31]
Wood Storks and Wild Azalea, OPF 2023-01-31

We’re used to wild azaleas, Rhododendron canescens, blooming around now. Plenty of buds promise more flowers after this first one.

But the other sight was more unusual. Continue reading →

Grapes, beaver pond, sycamore, beggarticks, bananas, cypress swamp, dogs 2022-08-10

A walk in the woods one summer day.

[Grapes, sycamore, banana, cypress swamp]
Grapes, sycamore, banana, cypress swamp

Those grapes were ripe and tasty. Muscadine, Vitis rotundifolia. This is down by a beaver pond. Continue reading →

Beaver Ponds, Yellow Dog, Gretchen and her Sycamore 2021-02-20

It’s good to get a little exercise.

[Log, Fungus, Yellow Dog, Sycamore]
Log, Fungus, Yellow Dog, Sycamore

Gretchen likes heaving logs under the red maples.

[Gretchen and her log]
Gretchen and her log

Beaver Pond

Birds and dogs.

[Gretchen and a beaver pond]
Gretchen and a beaver pond

Fungus

We could get it down with a ladder.

[Gretchen and the lion's mane]
Gretchen and the lion’s mane

But we left it there to grow again.

This moss grows all the time.

Woods

In her habitat.

[Gretchen in the woods with vines]
Gretchen in the woods with vines

Yellow Woods Dog

Yellow Dog knows all the woods paths.

[This way?]
This way?

Upper Pond

This is also a beaver pond now, only larger than the others.

[Quite full]
Quite full

Yellow Pond Dog

Dogs like mud.

[Yellow Dog in the pond]
Yellow Dog in the pond

Sycamore

That tree was knee-high when we transplanted it.

[Gretchen and her Sycamore]
Gretchen and her Sycamore

-jsq

Cat face, beaver pond 2020-06-16

Back in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, my father and grandfather paid off the mortgage on the farm through income from turpentine. This is a catface, where the bark was scraped off a pine tree so its sap would ooze out, to be caught in a metal cup nailed below on the tree.

[Catface and beaver pond]
Catface and beaver pond

The rest of the tree long ago was logged.

Behind the pine tree stump and the adjoining oak tree, you can see a beaver pond. Continue reading →

Cottonmouth moccasin v Yellow Dog and Brown Dog @ OPF 2016-11-29

At the far side of the pond, Yellow Dog spotted a moccasin before anybody else. The small but deadly Agkistrodon piscivorus didn’t stand a chance against the pair of experienced snake wranglers, Yellow Dog and Brown Dog.

Can you see the snake? (Tail, lower left)

Continue reading →