Satisfied Sunday

heidi08 Friends of Martinez Beavers, kits July 13, 2008

Today was a full service beaver banquet. This morning we worked the farmers market and spread the Beaver Gospel. One highlight of the day was meeting Tillie from the Martinez History Museum on Main St. She would like to talk about a beaver display and we’re going down tuesday to think it over. Next came a nice chat with the city treasurer who pointed out that Worth A Dam was in the paper, which I didn’t know about. I will be presenting about beavers to the MUSD summer school on wednesday, and apparently the director mentioned something to the Gazette. I’m just about ready with the presentation: “The Incredible Adapting Beaver”. Here’s hoping 180 Martinez children now tell their parents to take them to the dam and practice their penmanship by writing the mayor.

Later came a very productive meeting of the Worth A Dam team to discuss our plans for a beaver festival. If things work out there should be some good downtown fun in the next few weeks. Think Beaver-Willows-Sacajawea connection. More to come.

Finally, this evening was remarkably rewarding in the beaver-viewing department. Every family member on display, four kits mewling loudly at the secondary dam, lots of clambering for a ride on mom’s back, and some truly appreciative new human faces on the bridges. Thanks Glen and Karen for Jon’s gift of a delightful trash-snatching arm. You have been beaver friends since the very beginning and your kind attention helps. Towards the end of the evening the tide was coming in so fast it was washing the mud off the secondary dam upstream. There will be lots of work to do tonight for the older ones. I saw activity in every corner, and was thrilled to hear the beaver serenade I had missed since last September. How much do you want to bet that no member of the city council has ever heard the sound a kit makes? It is the guardianship siren’s song: I’m fairly sure that once you hear it you are destined to be their advocate forever.

It was a summer evening to savor.

Worth an Eyrie? (Updated below)

heidi08 In the News, New Species July 11, 2008

Yesterday’s Gazette pointed out the new addition to the football field: a large nest atop one of the light platforms. The headline is “Bald Eagle Sets up Nest Atop Knowles Field”, but the body of the article quotes Susan Heckly of the Linsay Museum saying it may also be an Osprey.

Ya think?

Smart money is betting on the Osprey, as we have at least one productive pair downtown that comes back every summer and makes their home on the west hills. Usually I can watch them from the backyard. The article also suggested it might be a “juvenile bald eagle” and its worth mentioning that even if this was the case, the odds of it being recognized are very small. Young bald eagles (like young people, when you think of it) aren’t “bald”. It takes about four years for them to get their classic white head. In the meantime they look very much like a golden eagle.

Here’s a photo of a immature bald eagle, taken last year in the high sierras:

Here’s a mature bald eagle, taken last year in Alaska where they are practically as common as crows:

Here’s an osprey for comparison. This photo was taken in the everglades where they don’t have many high trees to choose from and so the birds are much more visible.

Notice the white chest and eye stripe. They are also a good deal smaller than eagles, but still large enough to make you draw a breath when you see one. Many years ago Jon and I were driving down highway one at Jenner when we suddenly noticed a heavy opsrey presence. Nearly 50 were filling up the skies, diving into the ocean, and scooping out their unlucky prey. We pulled over to watch in awe as bird after bird displayed its fishing prowess. There must have been some kind of fish run, a sudden temporary increase in food that drew predators from miles around. It was amazing.

The osprey was deeply hurt by our use of pesticides in the 70’s, (DDT in particular, which weakened the eggshells and meant that many were crushed) but it has made a remarkable comeback. Every fall we canoe the ocean rivers in Mendocino and we count a nesting pair every half mile or so. Walk the abandoned snake road trail and you will see several, on their way to and from the water, their fish tucked like torpedos under their feet. Ospreys usually nest on the tops of headless trees or on high flat platforms given to them by man (like the top of a football field light fixture) and you can often see these on powerpoles and the like.

Our crack wildlife team is on the mystery of this football-loving bird. We’ll get you photos soon…

UPDATE:

Okay, the droppings and discarded sticks under the nest definately give it that lived in appearance. For the final eagle/osprey answer we need an actual bird sighting. However, if you happen to stop by, check for pellets. Most birds of prey drop balls of undigested material (fur and bones) on the ground beneath their nest. Ospreys are fairly unique in that they usually don’t. If you see a pellet…we have eagles. In that unlikely event our poor bulldogs might have to sit this season out…

Close Encounters

heidi08 Beavers July 9, 2008

Last night I stood at the dam with rapt attention trying to get an accurate, full-family count. There were no other watchers, and no one down in the beaver-illicit zone. How surprised was I to see a furry cat-sized shadow scramble up onto the bank. When it gnawed on the little willow close to me I realized what I was seeing. A very small kit on the shore about two feet away. He arched and reached and struggled for the best branch. Then he plopped back into the water and scuttled away.

I don’t think I breathed out the whole time he was on the bank.

I don’t know if its good luck when a beaver crosses your path, but it must indicate some kind of fortune. Certainly it says without out a doubt that tonight is not a night like any other, and declares itself unique.

As for the count, which I nearly forgot, I think we can safely say that the adults/yearlings are waking later and later. I saw my first kit at 7:15, but mom didn’t head over the dam for almost two more hours. Thanks to Jon who kayaked down hunting trash in the hot hot sun yesterday. And thanks to one kit who volunteered for a close encounter.

Beaver myths throughout the ages

heidi08 Beavers, Educational July 8, 2008

Quia cum vena torem se insequentem conovit, morsu testiculos sibi abscidit, et in faciem vena toris eos proicit et sic fugiens evadit

Turns out that complete misunderstanding of beaver behavior is nothing new. In fact the poor beaver has been miserably misunderstood since the middle ages and beyond. The above auspicious slander is taken from the Aberdeen Bestiary, which is a work documenting real and fictional creatures and their moral significance. The Bestiary goes back as far as the fourth century, although the addition of European animals like the beaver were added later.

To be fair, the bestiary was never intended as a “National Geographic of the Middle Ages”. It was a religious rather than a zoological text. But its pernicious misrepresentation of beavers lasted woefully to the Victorian era. Read for yourself:

Of the beaver There is an animal called the beaver, which is extremely gentle; its testicles are are highly suitable for medicine. Physiologus says of it that, when it knows that a hunter is pursuing it, it bites off its testicles and throws them in the hunter’s face and, taking flight, escapes.

So the story goes that the beaver is hunted for its castorum and decides to bite off its own testicles and throw them to the hunter rather than be killed. Check out the illustration of the same: (Yes that longlegged dog-looking thing is supposed to be a beaver)

This all comes about from mistaken entomology in which it is assumed that the beavers latin name (castor) is related to the root of castrate, and whimsy just takes over from there. The misconnection is untangled here.

Now I don’t know much about bestiaries and the middle ages, but I can only assume that every male of every species that has ever existed is partial to his own testicles and therefore unlikely to sacrifice them in favor of a protected aquatic life. I can’t fathom that anyone ever believed this, and can’t believe that it is quoted all the way up to 2008. Still the story served a particular need of a society that wanted to benefit from castorum and fur and didn’t much care about accuracy. People were able to ignore their own perceptions and experience of the world in order to see the impossible story that fit their needs.

I sure am glad that doesn’t happen any more.

This Just In…

heidi08 Beaver News, City Reports July 6, 2008

Tonight I had a call from the police station saying that they had a report of a dead adult beaver out by the pier. They had called Bob Cellini at city staff and he had told them to call me (thanks, Bob). The beaver was apparently in the water, recently enough dead to be still dropping blood when animal control picked him up, but our homeless said they had seen him there since the fourth. Linda and Moses were quickly on the scene, even before I received a similar call from Luigi saying that the woman who had reported the beaver to the police was in his store. We know the dead beaver can’t be mom because its tail was unscarrred.

So far tonight we have seen four new kits, both adults and for sure one yearling. Last night we saw the smaller yearling chewing on blackberries again, so that’s all our cast of characters. It appears unlikely that this beaver was ours, since it was so far upstream. Stay tuned for updates, but it looks like a grim reminder that Beavers are everywhere and if we relocate ours, new ones will come to fill their place.

Thanks officer and Bob and Luigi for making sure the information came my way.