Beaver and Blackbirds: Another Hike In The PPL Wetlands.

Sunday was opening day for my favorite football team, the Philadelphia Eagles. Game time was 1 p.m. so  I decided to take a break from my search for wild mushrooms and take a quick hike through the PPL Wetlands. 

As regular readers of my blog would know,  I love these protected wetlands located between the nuclear power plant in Salem Township  and the Susquehanna River, about a half hour drive from my home. There is such a wide variety of flora and fauna in this area, I always seem to find something of interest for a  nature lover  like me. I love to share my experiences down here.  

And I wasn’t disappointed on Sunday. As I started  my walk on the trail along the Susquehanna River,  I heard a splashing sound in waters below me.  I first wondered if a bear or other small animal could have jumped in the river.

I continued my walk and heard it again. I had to turn back investigate. As I neared the area I heard the splashing and saw water flying into the air. Totally puzzled now I found a clearing to look over the river bank and saw this critter swimming in the water  near the shore. And I am sure it saw me too.

It did  not flee, but continued to swim in a wide circle slamming it’s tail into the water and causing the loud  splashing noise. From the size of it’s tail I think it is a beaver, although some friends suggested it may be a river otter. Here is a link to a video I took on my IPhone. https://youtu.be/GOxkgkHbi9c

Whatever it was it knew I was watching and continued it’s behavior. It would seem it was defending this territory for some reason. I was puzzled on seeing a beaver in the river and is why I am not sure if it could be an otter. Any positive identification would be appreciated.  I would have loved to stay and watch it swim in the river  but I knew I didn’t have a lot of time for my hike so I decided to continue my walk. Here are some more photographs I took of what I believe is a beaver. Beaver photographs. 

I walked  under the shade of ancient trees growing along the river. The trees in the wetlands still had their Summer green but there was  a silence here for the first time since the Spring.

Many of the song birds have now left these woods on their journey south for the Winter. And I didn’t hear or see any of the usual resident robins, catbirds or red  winged blackbirds. I did see a few wood ducks take off as I approached a pond or canal and saw this flycatcher perched on a branch. 

I noticed this spider  web  and saw it’s owner wrapping a web around an unfortunate insect that had been trapped. 

As I walked under the trees I found the husks of some black walnut trees and hazel nuts , which would have been opened by a chipmunk or squirrel.

 I made my way to the river lands area of the  nature preserve and found this milkweed pod that I had photographed last week.There were some tiny eggs on it and they now hatched, and the pod was covered with these newly hatched insects. 

There were not many people at Lake Took-A-While, a few walkers and bikers, but most of the fisherman were gone too. 

The crab apple trees had an abundance of fruit and 

There was an abundance of this annoying plant along the trail, ragweed. 

It was getting late so I had to turn back when I started to see flock after flock of red-winged blackbirds crossing the lake and flying from tree to tree in along the trail.

I watched for about 15 minutes as the birds continued to stream across the lake and down the trails. Here is a link to a YouTube video I took of some of the migrating birds. Red-winged blackbird migrating flocks 

I could have watched them for hours but I couldn’t miss my football game so I walked back to the wetlands. I didn’t see any bald Eagles in the wetlands but I was happy to get home in time for the game and get to see my Philadelphia Eagles win!  I am still glad I  got to spend the morning outdoors in the wetlands,once again it didn’t disappoint this nature lover. Here is a link to some more photographs from my hike. PPL Wetland photographs