Relocation: Not A Happy Ending?

Crazy Talk

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, kits, Recent Sightings July 10, 2011

For some time now its been clear our kit-yearlings are living on their own in a kind of “Island of the Blue Dolphins” beaver limbo. Their dam attempts are clearly not guided with the help of an adult, and they appear to be learning on the job the best they can. This makes sense as I read for the first time recently that dam building doesn’t really start in earnest until a beaver’s second year. Which is now.

We actually hadn’t seen much of GQ or dad before the washout in March, but Bob’s video clearly showed Dad swimming along near the footbridge. After that we didn’t spot him again. Cheryl photographed GQ coming back with a bundle of willow one morning, but he clearly didn’t stay. The best proof we have that our kits are ‘home alone-ing it’ is the shape of their dams, which, to be kind, appear somewhat fanciful.

How could the adults just leave? I have some thoughts about that. One comes from Bob Arnebeck who told me that the only beavers he’d ever seen leave a site after a washout and NOT rebuild was when there were new kits on the way. I figured it was possible dad found a mate and brought her to better grounds, and our three chose not to follow. I do think that our colony was destabilized significantly by the loss of mom last year. Our kits spent their first summer sleeping halftime at Dad’s house, half time with GQ. They were joint custody beavers, and the psychologist in me wants to say that much of their attachment was to a sense of place, rather than a sense of family. My theory is that’s why they came back to the lodge even when it had washed out, and didn’t follow the adults wherever they went.

As I read more of Enos Mills I began to expect that, even if Dad was gone, he wasn’t far. And we’d likely see him again. Mills describes seeing the male beavers take off for a period in the summer and explore new territories, then return in the fall when there was work to be done. He said this proved useful later when it was time for the colony to relocate, which they did in groups, and they’d know which areas had good willow and water. Honestly. There’s a stunning passage at the end of the book where a fire completely wipes out the woods all around the 8 families living in a series of ponds, and the next morning he sees a beaver exodus. 30-40 beavers marching in search of a better life. I’d be incredulous if he were not such a respected voice, and so consistent in describing beaver migration several times throughout the book. I can’t imagine such a thing happening here, but it comforts me to think they’d be together. I do remember that news report of the seven beavers killed crossing the road in a single morning, could that have been a migration?

Thursday morning when I saw the otters, I saw something else. A sneaky beaver appear from nowhere and slowly swim across the stream. When I saw it I half said to myself, Dad? Because his coloring was different, peach/orange/tan, and his face was so craggy and muscled. I shook my head and dismissed it as my imagination, and went on watching otters snake around the creek. When I got home and looked at the footage closely I was more convinced it was Dad because of the bumpy face but then distracted by something else – or a possible something else. There appeared to be a wound on his left flank, like a gash from something metal, a propeller or fence post or something.

Cheryl and Lory went down Thursday night and saw one looking well and I staggered down before dawn Friday morning to make sure our kits were both okay. I got a good look at both of them and was relieved that they weren’t hurt. I spent time fiddling with the footage to see the wound better, and see the face better. I am pretty sure that there is a gash, but I am even more sure it is Dad.

Dad’s ‘hair’ looks different in these pictures, but look closely at the gnarled structure of his skull and face. Even GQ’s face was sleek and adult looking, and our kit-yearlings, even though they are getting so big, still have smooth baby faces.

I’m eager to see him again and see if its really a wound, I went down again at 5 butt I saw nothing this morning, – except an air tight primary dam – oh and without a single reed.

שנים עשר חודש

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Friends of Martinez Beavers, kits, Recent Sightings, Why We Care June 26, 2011

Shneim asar chodesh – Twelve months

Those mourning a parent additionally observe a twelve-month period (Hebrew: שנים עשר חודש, shneim asar chodesh ; “twelve months”), counted from the day of death. During this period, most activity returns to normal, although the mourners continue to recite the mourner’s kaddish as part of synagogue services for eleven months.

A year ago this morning I was waken by a phone call from Moses who had been standing at Starbucks watching over mom beaver as she huddled on a little patch of land, looking weak and disoriented. Jon and I hurried down to check after calling the others. We found her chattering and confused, at one point bumping into the wall while she swam. Cheryl drove down with an animal crate from IBRRC and we made the decision to pick her up and take her to Lindsay, where she was examined and euthanized.

Was it really a year ago?

It used to inexplicably feel like it happened a million years ago and like it happened yesterday. Like if you could inhale the stale breath of loss deeply enough you could trace it all the way back to the tremor of that morning – when loss was merely feared. Now the grief has had a year to sink in, the mud has piled high, and mom’s tombstone, in the jewish tradition, can be officially unveiled.

This morning I brought down some flowers and was happy to see that her children were observing the day in most commonly observed beaver tradition: doing what she taught them. Like all mothers, she obviously tucked a note in their jeans genes as she was leaving. They must have just got around to reading it because they’ve been hard at work being the beavers she meant for them to be. The note listed her priorities for them, and what appear to have become their priorities for themselves:

1. First Build a dam

2. Then Build a lodge

The secondary dam is looking very solid, and no one was bothering with it but a happy kingfisher who wondered why I wouldn’t leave so he could dive for dinner in peace.

Farther up stream, above the primary dam, two busy beavers cast ripples in the water.

Huge balls of mud were being rolled out of lodge number 1 and great excavations were occurring at the site of lodge number 2. I’m not yet sure where they’ll settle lodge nuber 3 but they obviously have plans in mind. Two beavers were working this morning and when the water wasn’t cloudy with their efforts it was emerald translucent glass.

Standing at the Escobar bridge, as I had stood for so many mornings when our colony was just starting out, I was struck by how much had happened and how very little had changed. Beavers had died and beavers were living. Dams washed out and dams were standing. Trees had fallen and trees were growing. Both banks of the creek were layered with an explosion of willow, growing up and out and over. This lush canopy was rich enough to cover a multitude of scars: the holes where mom sat when she was ill, the collapsed lodge that flooded and imploded in March, even the mistaken sheetpile that sealed a property-owners land and our beavers’ fate – covered over with new growth. Everything dead was covered by everything living.

I was reminded of a Carl Sandburg poem, which you should listen to just because of the musicality of his voice, another living thing covering ideas of death.

And mom, who is gone and not forgotten, we remember you today and are grateful for the very long visit you paid to Martinez.

This Time Last Year

heidi08 kits June 9, 2011

Today’s the day, remember it?

When first I spied a beaver kit

A little swim, a little chew

Doing just what beavers do.

He was so small from nose to tail

His movements hesitant and frail

He barely dove, and when he tried

He floated up without a guide

Two days hence we found a brother

Then saw them joined by yet another

Three kits swam and chewed and cried

A few brief weeks and mother died.

Today’s a year, I can’t believe

The changes that have made us grieve

Mom is gone, the home they built

The dams forlorn – their ponds all spilt.

No man nor city hurt their fate

‘Twas nature flooded down their gate

We did our best, but such are courses

They suffered most from natural forces.

We wish them well and fondly savor

Three plump kits whose goals still waiver

While they are near we watch and hope

Whatever nature brings, they’ll cope.

Heidi Perryman

Kittens anyone?

heidi08 kits, Why We Care May 30, 2011

And before anyone asks, no, you can’t have ours!

cutie — 2010 beaver Kit - Cheryl Reynolds

Martinez Destiny

heidi08 Beavers, Friends of Martinez Beavers, History, kits May 28, 2011

So a couple months ago I was avidly reading “In Beaver World” by Enos Mills who was called the “John Muir of the Rockies”.

Beaver works are of economical and educational value besides adding a charm to the wilds. The beaver is a persistent practicer of conservation and should not perish from the hills and mountains of our land. Altogether, the beaver has so many interesting ways, is so useful, skillful, practical, and picturesque that his life and his deeds deserve a larger place in literature and in our hearts.

Enos Mills

I was was told by Robert Hanna, (Muir descendant and fellow board member) that the pair met in San Francisco at the beach and became friends with common interests. Robert directed me to some correspondence archived at University of the Pacific where I learned that Mills asked for an invite to Martinez in 1907 and Muir responded with a ‘please come’ in October of that year. My fancy was struck with the idea of the author of arguably the most important beaver book yet in circulation coming to Martinez, which would one day become the location of some pretty famous beavers.

There was no record at the Muir house of his visit. No one from UOP or the Sierra Club could tell me if it happened. The helpful rangers and interpretive guides couldn’t say whether the visit occurred or not. I eventually figured the trip would have been a bigger deal to Mills than Muir, so went looking at his site for clues. I had very enthusiastic guides from the Colorado Rockies national park and the Mills cabin looking through original documents and biographies. I learned that the copies of Muir’s letters were among the items found in Mills top desk drawer when he died, so they were clearly precious. Maybe it was too much to make the visit come true? Apparently Mills was a little hard on himself, and might not have been able to accept an offer that was so exactly what he wanted. I could understand that.

Then yesterdays fluke email turned me on to the California Digital Newspaper Collection and I spent yesterday ravaging history and not even getting dusty. I found articles from the 1800’s about beavers in the Stanislaus, Merced, and Tuolumne rivers. I found articles encouraging the adoption of kits as pets, or using dam building as a weather indicator. I found articles about beavers at Bodega Bay and Santa Barbara.

And then I found this:

It’s from the San Francisco Call newspaper in March 1908 when Enos Mills was a guest speaker at the California Club, and it clearly says Mills will be a guest of John Muir on his visit. Which means Enos Mills came to Martinez when my house was ten years old. I imagine he took the train and went from the old station to the Muir house by carriage, riding over the creek which is home to our beavers and my home on his way. Golly.