Morning’s at seven

heidi08 Beaver News, New Species, Recent Sightings January 31, 2010

Look who was visiting the primary dam this morning! Fishing all around the tangled flow device with his greedy appetite. It’s been a good long while since I have seen cormorants that high up in the creek. I remember the eager one when staff first lowered the dam a million (pre-flowdevice) years ago. He came right in the middle of the crowd of workers, determined to be the only mouth at the damside when all those fish were pushed to the drain.

This morning was a foggy, peaceful, and beaver-less visit. I don’t know if I was too early or too late to catch the show, but several people assured me they had been there in the dark. I strolled down to check out the woodduck boxes, and stopped to listen for frogs. The third dam is looking fairly repaired, although the fourth is entirely gone. The damlet and canal were in stark relief because of the nicely low tide. There were plenty of cooperative beaver footprints in view.

Yesterday Jon tried something new to protect the chewed trees at the primary dam. Sand-painting. It has been recommended that painting the trunks with sand discourages beaver nibbling as they dislike the gritty texture. The paint is non-toxic and won’t harm them even if they persevere. We’ll see what happens. He had wire-wrapped them after the new year’s feeding frenzy but the wire disappeared,(whether by overly fastidious staff or beaver-defenders of grand compassion we couldn’t say). The sand isn’t likely to go anywhere, and as the color is matched to the trunk it shouldn’t be a problem for the city.

The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearl’d;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in His heaven—
All’s right with the world!

Robert Browning: Pippa Passes

Friends Helping Beavers

heidi08 Beaver News, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Friends of Martinez Beavers January 30, 2010

Fans of the Martinez Beavers will understand more intimately than most that the survival of our beavers ultimately depended on just one thing. Sure public outcry made a difference, and fear of political ruin quivered the hearts of at least two on the council, but if the dam had stayed at its original height and continued to pose a flooding threat, they would have been soundly dispatched. (Sent in a pickup truck to Plumas county if the god’s were kind or off to a glue factory somewhere if they were not.)

What fundamentally allowed the beavers to remain with us was the flow device, installed by Skip Lisle and often mistakenly called a “beaver deceiver”. (It’s actually a “Castor Master”.) This allowed for the water height to be lowered in such a way that the movement is disguised from the beavers. They don’t feel the suction and don’t associate the outflow with their dam, so they tolerate the water loss. Skip invented the beaver deceiver during his work with the Penobscot Nation. He went on to develop his ideas for the flow device and round fence over time. Skip is committed to showing the world that flow devices work. He traveled to Lithuania this summer to talk at the conference there, and he is headed for Oregon next week to give a four hour teaching at the State of the Beaver Conference.

Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions trained with Skip and eventually developed his own full time business around beaver management. His vision of the best use of management skills included a teaching DVD that would allow property owners, cities and transit workers to cheaply implement tools that could manage problematic beaver behavior. He is well aware that allowing this keystone species to remain takes care of so many others, but Mike is a pragmatic beaver defender who helps businesses focus on the bottom line. Installing a successful flow device, he argues, can manage the problem now and in the future. Hiring a trapper is a temporary solution that will get more expensive over time.

Mike was awarded a grant from the AWI last year to make the DVD, and has been working towards its release. Expect it in the Spring of 2010. Recently he approached me asking to pay to include three minutes of my beaver footage in the production. Since Mike’s smart website was the first place I turned with beaver questions LO these many moons ago, and we became friends over the ensuing years, I can’t think of anything more “full circle” than using that footage to help him and help beavers around the country for years to come. Whatever financial agreement we figure out will go to Worth A Dam.

In the mean time, I am helping him spread the word about the upcoming project with an announcement postcard sent to beaver supporters and interested media. You might recognize my favorite photo from Bob Armstrong of the Mendenhall Glacier Beavers. (He gave his blessing on the prospect, and arranged for Mike to come do a beaver management plan in the state park there.) The idea is to follow up with a second announcement once the project is released. I’m hopeful that by helping more people learn that there are reasonable ways to manage beaver behavior, and inexpensive tools for learning about them, we can significantly impact the well-being of beavers all around the country.

In the mean time, our wikipedia friend is supposed to be honing a “flow device” entry this weekend. It’s hard to remember so long ago, but in 2007 I definitely had to hunt to find out about options. Remember how many people talked about the Clemson Pond Leveler at the meeting? Someone from Lafayette even donated the funds for one. That was one tool that had been published and talked about, but the technology had already come a long way since then. Mike was the one who explained that to me. Let’s hope “flow device” becomes a household name – at least as common as “snare”.

Rebuild

heidi08 Environmental January 29, 2010

Visitors to the dams this week have noticed that the primary sustained some dam-age. Our forward-thinking beavers invested their repair energy in the secondary dam, keeping the water at the gates. Jon says this morning they have done some major repairs on the first dam, using high bushy willow that makes the structure look a little madcap and creative. They haven’t mudded it yet, but firsts things first. It’s a start.

In the meantime, its time for the frog chorus again. Every year around this time we get a couple mornings with enormous frog song, as the male tree frogs gather in hope of luring a mate. Here’s what I said about it last year:

Last night’s visit to the dam showed four rascally kits, a yearling, and a very loud chorus of Pacific Tree Frogs. I remember when they showed up last year: (January 27th) after a rain, all at once, almost as loud as traffic. These are the males who come to gather and advertise for a mate. They use “ephemeral” wetlands that temporarily hold enough water for mating, but won’t run as great a risk of their offspring getting eaten by fish.

advertisement chorus

In the days after their population explosion we got our first scaup visitors, and oddly all the frog song got alot quieter. Turns out that scaup are carnivores, and they probably climbed this creek looking for the tastey makers of that song. I thought at the time that the song ceased because the adults been eaten, but actually the “mating advertisement” ceased because the campaign had been successful. Procreation had occurred and eggs were laid. I’m sure the Scaup enjoyed the tadpoles.

The 2008 state of the estuary report says that scaup are declining in number in practically every watershed in the Bay Area. Except Martinez, where there were flocks of 30-50 seen for the very first time.

Listen for the frogs and watch out for their predators. Apparently the females don’t make any noise and that’s how the males know who to breed with. I read that they sometimes accidentally choose a soft-spoken salamander by mistake. Keep that in mind while you enjoy them, and make a noise or two just to be on the safe side.

They seem to be farther down this year, more towards the fourth dam. I think Hess scraped away their favorite places. Hmm. Some of mine too.

Keep your ears open!