For quite some time now I've been driving by these 'mounds' in a field and wondering what they were...who made them...what kind of animal would do that? It was beginning to drive me crazy!
The only guess I could make was that perhaps some confused beavers came through the area, didn't find adequate water flow (they'd have to be blind and a little crazy for that to happen) so made due with what was available and created these mounds in a field that holds about 6 inches of water at certain times of the year.
Ok...so the crazy blind beavers theory didn't seem very plausible to me either so I started wondering who could tell me the real answer. I asked a lot of people and sent pictures out far and wide.....I got nothing helpful back. Finally I sent an email and picture to the Ct Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and they forwarded my email on to someone named Elaine Hinsch of the Wildlife Division in the Bureau of Natural Resources.
Sometime later Elaine confirmed for me that these are muskrat lodges! Yes...muskrats! (not the same ones from the song Muskrat Love however).
Here is what Elaine said: "The photograph is a muskrat lodge. It appears from the vegetation around the lodge that it had been partially submerged under water. You mentioned that there were similar mounds in the area. Muskrats are more likely to share a body of water with other muskrats; whereas beaver may have more than one lodge but they are typically of the same family."
I take that to mean muskrats will form a village with other muskrats they aren't related to whereas beavers are more 'clannish' and prefer to bunk with family.
I did go to the field this weekend. I brought a friend and a stout pair of boots (also known as my ugly boots). She took pictures as I slowly inched my way out closer to the first lodge. Well my courage failed me when I got a fist full of some kind of prickly things while trying to move some of the stalks out of the way to see where I was walking. The ground was getting progressively more wet and mucky...I began to have visions of myself sinking and my friend going home alone with only pictures of the top of my head poking out of the swampy water and a really good story about how she saw the whole thing happen!! Ok, that's a bit dramatic but I knew she wasn't going to be able to get me out if I got stuck out there. I could feel the ground giving way more and more with each step and I just didn't have the courage to go any farther. I took pictures at the closest point I've ever been...that must be good for something, right? And I know I had to have been trespassing when I was doing all this so perhaps I deserve a few points for that as well? (somehow trespassing as an adult seems a lot more serious than it was when I did it as a teenager without hesitation)
There was a red winged black bird watching me the whole time too. I'm sure he got a laugh out of seeing me trying to mince delicately around this swampy section of his neighborhood. I took his picture while I was there too. It was nice of him to stick around for that...at least I didn't come back empty handed. I also found a nest stuck in the y of a small scrub tree. And that got me thinking too. I've been under the impression that this field has been planted every year but how could there be trees grown up that much if it's being plowed on a regular basis? Perhaps they are 'resting' it and if so, what a surprise they'll get when they see who's moved in while they weren't looking.
