Kits on parade

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, kits June 22, 2010

We are definitely learning about the unique personalities of our three new beavers. (It is of course possible that they all act every way at different times), but, subject to some frequent revisions, we are beginning to spot some patterns.

One is tenacious in his/her pursuit of delicious treats, especially if mom is eating it. The Veruca Salt of beavers, he/she is more likely to snatch the food from mom’s paws that to go find their own. Mom completely ignores these demands and turns her back or stands up to get her breakfast out of reach. She parents these demands without any sentimentality whatsoever, but also without aggression. We kept expecting a big blowup after the millionth attempt to steal her food, but it never came. When junior’s on the warpath she will just go to another place to eat, although she never goes over the dam, where they aren’t allowed yet.

There’s definitely a smaller, more snuggly kit, who sometimes just wants to be close to mom or to nuzzle. That kit seem to enjoy “the company of beavers” and wants to be near the others no matter what they’re doing. This is the adorable star of the footage I shot on June 13th, hitching a ride on mom’s back. She parents this kit with gentleness and nurturing and will stay near while she eats or grooms. Get your cameras out when this kit approaches because it encourages adorable behavior in everyone.

Photo: FROgard Butler

I am less familiar with our third hero, but I believe this is the adventuresome “national geographic” explorer who climbs bravely out of the water onto the dam in search of food. The kit is never worried by being alone, and not after mom’s food either. S/he has places to go, things to see, crannies to overturn. This kit swam the course of the pond underwater with narry a glitch, quite an accomplishment for a 5-6 week old floating cork. S/he takes spectacular risks, and runs back to the lodge in terror when they go spectacularly wrong. Which they do regularly. His or her tumble is featured in the June 17th footage.

It is tempting to ascribe gender traits to these beavers, and say the sweet one is a girl or the brave one is a boy, but I am purposely avoiding it. Beavers are monomorphs that have no external sex characteristics whatsoever. The matriarchal structure of beaver life means that females need to be just as competent and just as skilled as their male counterparts. They disperse for greater distances and do equal ‘heavy lifting’. Several times in her careful chronicle famous beaver writer Hope Ryden ascribed gender to her subjects only to be proven wrong when visible teats were seen during nursing season. These kits won’t be here when they raise their own familes, so we will likely never know the gender of these beavers.

And that’s just fine with me. I think Brat, Baby and Explorer will serve excellently as gender ambiguous heroes.

Solstice Beavers

heidi08 Uncategorized June 21, 2010

Three again and mum. Visitors from Pittsburg and Vallejo. Lovely.

The Longest Day…

heidi08 Uncategorized June 21, 2010

A raw deal for our nocturnal friends, but lucky for us!

National Geographic: Ker Than

The summer solstice is recognized and often celebrated in many cultures around the world, in both the past and present. The ancient Egyptians, for example, built the Great Pyramids so that the solstice sunset, when viewed from the Sphinx, sets precisely between two of the Pyramids.

The Inca of South America celebrated the summer solstice with a ceremony called Inti Raymi, which included food offerings and sacrifices of animals and maybe even people. And perhaps most famously, Stonehenge in the United Kingdom has been associated with the winter and summer solstices for about 5,000 years. Observers in the center of the standing stones can watch the summer solstice sun rise over the Heel Stone, which stands just outside Stonehenge’s stone circles.

For many of the ancients, though, the summer solstice wasn’t just an excuse to party or pray—it was essential to their well-being. Associated with agriculture, the summer solstice was a reminder that a turning point in the growing season had been reached.

“The calendar was very important—much more important than it is now,” said Ricky Patterson, an astronomer at the University of Virginia. “People wanted to know what was going to happen so that they could be ready.”

Do you know what else is really good to do on the day with the most daylight hours of 2010? Watch the Martinez Beavers of course. Since they have the shortest night in which to feed they are likely to risk coming out in the twilight hours and stick around for the morning. Sunset is 8:34. Twilight is civil 9:06. Nautical twilight 9:45. Astronomical twilight 10:30. You can bet worth a dam will be there to keep track of their pagan festivities.

There are actually three types of twilight during this time of year: civil, nautical and astronomical. Civil twilight occurs in the first half hour before sunrise or after sunset, when the sun is less than six degrees below the horizon. Nautical twilight is so named because the horizon is still visible enough for navigation (even though the sun is six to 12 degrees below the horizon.) Astronomical twilight occurs when the sun is 12 to 18 degrees below the horizon. It’s only when the sun is a full 18 degrees below the horizon that the stars become visible.

Darragh Worland

And then of course there’s beaver twilight, when its utterly too dark to see anything and you know full well you should go home and put out the recycling but you stay out anyway because now there’s three.

If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose,” the Walrus said,
“That they could get it clear?”
“I doubt it,” said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.

Lewis Carrol

And in case you need a comforting glimpse of the human response to the oil apocalypse in the gulf, check out these images from the Annual Mermaid Parade in Coney Island. Some people get it.

Guess what we saw THREE of tonight???

heidi08 Uncategorized June 20, 2010

Relative…

heidi08 Environmental June 20, 2010

I received an email from watershed wizard Brock Dolman last night responding to the president’s oval office speech and a subsequent New York Times Article. Here’s a bit of what he said,

I must admit that when I heard Obama say the other night with his Oval Office speech – that the Gulf Gusher is “the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced” – like the NY Times article below – I immediately started laying out a long list of American Enviro disasters besides the Dust Bowl and near Bison extirpation mentioned below! Seems to me that we might as well invoke the clearcut conversion of the majority of all old growth vegetation communities of all types, the genocide of over 95%+ of all Native American Indians, the near extinction of most salmonids populations, the actual extirpation of passenger pigeons, the discovery of Gold in CA, the damning of most rivers in the west & east, filling of wetlands and cutting of riparian corridors, the Gulf dead zone, and on the fur trapping front I would also want to advocate that the destruction of beavers (and all other furbearers) on the continent and the subsequent impacts to watersheds, hydrology processes and biological carrying capacity diminishment – should be in on the competition for “the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced”.

Wow. Certainly the decimation of beavers changed the face of the nation – changed the fertility and responsiveness of the land. Changed parts of the west coast from temperate to arid. Changed the species available for hunting. Changed our ability to grow crops in dry areas. Changed the salmon runs. Changed the flight paths. Changed our streams from lush meandering shallow water to deeply downcut channels vulnerable to drought and flash flooding. Hmm.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that nearly all disasters started out as enormously lucrative “bright ideas” too. Take as many trees, beavers, bison, inch of farmland as you can. You can bet there has never been an environmental disaster where someone (or a bunch of someones) didn’t get sickeningly rich somewhere along the process. The vast destruction that’s a recipe for an environmental disaster of such magnitute cannot take place without its essential ingredient:

Greed.

Maybe the apocalypse in the gulf isn’t the worst environmental disaster in history. Maybe its not even the fastest. But I’m of the opinion that it’s no use trying to compare it now to anything because it isn’t finished. We have no idea how much damage it will eventually do, how drastically it will impact our wildlife or our ocean. We have no idea how we’ll look back on this and compare it to other events. Looking back is a luxury that we cannot afford. Right now we can only look through, through the thick brown gift that keeps on giving and the cloudy plumes of oxygen-depleting dispersant stretched out like severed fingers for miles along the ocean floor. Will this be the worst environmental disaster ever faced?

I’ll get back to you.