Exeter Beaver Swamp

I drive on Route 101 a lot, and whenever I pass this scene it always grabs my imagination.

It's a beaver swamp.

Beavers keep damming a culvert that drains the swamp under and across the highway, so the state has put a flexible hose in the opening and workers can reposition it whenever the beavers pile their sticks too high and block the hole.  In a full-resolution image, the hose is visible in the near foreground on the left.

There are also two beaver lodges visible in the swamp.  One is pretty easy to see as a hump in the open water at the left in the closer part of the watery area, and another lodge is harder to see among the reeds and bushes that are behind the first lodge.  It's possible that one of the lodges is a muskrat's, but they both aren't muskrats' because beavers are obviously at work in the swamp.  There are numerous gnawed stumps and fallen trees in the surrounding area.

Also visible in the full-resolution panorama, but in no real detail, is what I'm pretty sure is a great blue heron's nest.  Some large wading bird is visible as a silhouette standing in the nest (though that detail might be lost in what will be a downsampled upload when I post).

The view is always a distraction to me whenever I drive by.  I can't resist looking for birds and imagining what it's like down there when no one is around to see.  What kind of wildlife dwells there or visits the place?  Then I remember I'm driving and have to suddenly correct myself because I'm drifting out of my lane!  It's so beautiful to me.  I've seen hawks swooping across the swamp.  Sometimes I see the herons' nests.  I think there are two of them.

I made up my mind on Monday to go right after work and shoot the place.  You might recognize where it is.  On 101, as you're heading west from Hampton, you pass Exit 11 and go downhill toward the Squamscot River, after which you begin to climb a longish hill.  Exit 10 is about halfway up.  Go past that.  The swamp scene is most visible from the westbound lane at the top of the hill, just before Exit 9.  When I drove there, I got off 101 at Exit 9, parked very near the highway and walked back to the swamp where I set up my tripod.  What a haul!  My camera gear is heavy.

I'm not done with the place.  I'm going back in the fall to catch the foliage colors.

The panorama is pretty large.  It could easily be enlarged to close to three by just over six feet with very little loss of image quality.