I stood at the Escobar bridge today and watched mom get followed by the littlest beaver, who persuaded her to stop her work long enough for a nuzzle. The pair swam side-by-side and then dove with sychronistic grace, surfacing together and ducking back under in tandem like furry dolphins. Dad and a larger kit took sticks to the mostly repaired main dam: one corner is still letting water escape and they seemed determined to fix it. A familiar face on his way to work stopped his jaunty walk to watch my watching and say “I think they’re gone, aren’t they?” to which the beavers replied by elegantly continuing to exist.
“Nope, not gone,” I pointed, as two swam out from under the bridge.
They were definately feeding upstream, so maybe the rain helped them get a little more elbow room in both directions. The secondary dam is looking repaired; no scaups in evidence but a pair of california towhee’s chasing eachother in the berry bushes with what looked like love on their minds.
When I left I stopped at the dam before leaving I saw one last perfectionistic beaver haul out of the water, test a stick that was already in the placed, shift it slightly, and then paddle with satisfaction off to bed. A lovely morning for beaver-watching.
As an aside, I’ve been doing my math homework, adding up gestation days from when Moses filmed the pair almost mating. It was late december, and my research is telling me about 110 days for the pregnancy length. Assuming the act was consumated the last week of december we would be at day 66, which would put birth somewhere around tax time. Who knew something good could come on April 15th?
