| 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
This adorable video shows a baby beaver born as part of the England’s first wild breeding programme for 500 years. The emergence of the young has been heralded by wildlife experts as proof the project to reintroduce the mammals into the wild is working.
The trio of kits have been born on the River Otter and joined the group of beavers who were returned to the wild last year. It is not know when they were born but they were caught on camera by wildlife enthusiast Chris Townend, who described the mum and kit as looking healthy and happy.
Chris, 44, of Budleigh Salterton, Devon, runs wildlife watching company Wise Birding Holidays.
He said: “I live locally and keep an eye out on the river knowing they might be breeding this year. It is great news they are producing young. Last year beavers further north of the river produced three kits but this is the first one from this group at my end of the river. It was great to see. The whole project and trial has been brilliant and it was lovely to see they are doing well and adding to the population. Beavers are very positive to have around for the habitat. I have only seen one kit myself but I do know that three have been sighted in recent days. “
The spokesman added: “We understand that many will now want to see the kits for themselves. But like all new parents, the beavers will need a bit space and peace at this time.
“So we ask that visitors take care not to disturb them. This means remaining on public footpaths, keeping a respectful distance from them, and keeping dogs under close control especially when near the river.”
Ahhh the delightful new kits of summer! God bless Devon for reminding us why we love beavers, and god bless this ADORABLE footage which lovingly shows the kit diving in what is almost an accidental tail slap! I LOVE the awkwardness of kits as they gamely take on the unwieldy waterways of the wide world. Don’t you?
Speaking of unwieldy I was told at the 11th hour monday that our artist who does the beaver charms wouldn’t be helping us this year, after planning the project with me for a year and naming him in the grant. I usually call him every month just to check how things are coming along, and this time he STUNNED me with “I can’t do it“.
No Ecosystem Engineer bracelet? That we got a 1000 dollar grant for? And you’re telling me at the end of June? No children’s activity? And here I had just gone through all the steps to assign charms and educate helpers and print signs! We had a contract. He didn’t even call ME to say my God I’m sorry but….he just waited for me to call him and then dropped the bombshell.
I will say in my defense that I cried not at all and swore very little. I took about a minute to decide an alternative and boldly called Mark Poulin who did our buttons last year. I told him about the project and about the panic. I apologized for the late notice but thought he might be able to help somehow. Last year I saw a video showing how those 1 inch pins could be attached to a silicon wrist band to make a bracelet. Maybe we could use that idea to pull something together?
Mark said he was very busy and his designer was only coming on thursdays and he would ask her if it might be possible and call me on friday. He didn’t sound hopeful and I feared the worst. But yesterday he said he had called her that night and they had brainstormed together all the animals on wheels. He sent me this. We have some changes and additions to tweak but I was in heaven and so unbelievably grateful.
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Is that cute or is that CUTE??? This man knows cute. My god that’s so cute I almost want to be a three year old boy so I can fu
lly appreciate it! He put the salmon and frog and dragonfly on wheels to. I’m so incurably greedy I was still hoping we could get a caboose too, so that we could have a whole train, to get the idea across.
Well, crisis averted. Beautifully averted. We can make this an even 
better activity, we won’t need to link them together, just let kids attach them themselves to the band. Which means we won’t need a million volunteers. And we won’t need the extra space for the linking station. And Mark added one adorable one just because I apparently can’t type the ‘b’ for bird without writing ‘beaver’ instead. We’re doing these as magnets! I LOVE the way he’s holding on.
We already have 100 silicon bracelets that were given to us by a crew team in vallejo, so we just need another 100 and we’ll be good to go. After you attach the pin to the band it should look something like this:
