Category: Recent Sightings

Fancy meeting you here!

heidi08 Recent Sightings, Video July 31, 2011

This morning’s visit to the dam started with shadows, first a gray tailed phantom below the secondary dam which turned out to be a raccoon walking feeling his paws blindly downstream in search of tasty morsels. Apparently it was working rather well because he went as far as I could see in his swirling, hurple-gait. (And yes hurple is a word and it describes exactly what raccoons do since their front and back legs aren’t the same length.)

Then Reed loomed onto the scene, floating very slowly so he could keep an eye on the interloper. When the raccoon moved out of view he decided to do some work and carried a couple of loads of mud onto the dam. It must have been very low tide because when this beaver came home he had to walk up the creek in places. (:30)

Someone had definitely eaten their wheaties that morning because after this roaming beaver returned s/he went straight to work, lifting mud onto the dam and poking branches into better places. Swirls of mud hovered at the banks and scooping locations, and often only the wrinkle of water or a fizz of bubbles told you where the beaver would emerge next. There were several rounds of this;

And equal potions of this

Then working beaver dove into the bank hole by the footbridge. I noticed Reed was in the water, watching this subtly. Then working beaver re-emerged and swam towards Reed, and they circled about in an exchange that I was so happy to see I didn’t attempt to film. (I haven’t seen beavers interact since…March?) Then working beaver and Reed retired to the bank lodge. And I cheerfully came home.

Yesterday we picked up this years tshirts, designed by Amelia Hunter and lovingly printed by Courtyard Customs. I think you’re really going to like them. If you can’t come next saturday to get your own, you can always order one off zazzle and add your own name or logo!

beaver Festival IV by hdshrnkr

May you live in Exciting Times…

heidi08 Recent Sightings July 10, 2011

Last night there was an opening event at the Creek Monkey pub and guests gathered appreciatively near the wall to watch the monkeys beavers emerge. The tide was very high, so high that the old scrape was filled at the secondary dam and little of the primary showed at all. I did get a glimpse of this though, showing us that quite a bit of work had been done last night.

evidence 006 — Fresh Chew On the Primary Dam

What had been so painstakingly packed the night before, was a jumbled mass with all that water. I was there, breathlessly hanging on every ripple to catch ‘Dad’ when he sneaked over the dam and get a good look at his left flank. Camera ready, eyes straining into the trailing willow, ignoring the ooohing crowd as best I could, and waiting for the moment when –

BUBBLES!!!!!!!!

A razor thin line of bubbles, no bigger than the wake of a water strider and then a flurry of ripples at the gap. There was so much water I only saw the round of his back for a moment. And then the deep ripples as he swam to the Marina bridge.

“He’s over!” I called to Jon, who was waiting at the Bridge as the phantom disappeared into the blackberry brambles. We were lucky, we might never have seen him again, but it so happened that Bob Rust and his wife were sitting in Kayaks just beyond the secondary dam. The beaver was hesitant about going over, (well – through) but he was obviously willing to risk it. After reviewing his options, he dove into the middle of the soup-dam and then went straight under their boats.

He popped up for breath 10 feet away and we saw a big scraggly head in the water. Jon ran along the bank to catch up and was rewarded with the site of an adult beaver reaching up for a branch of willow and chewing it free. Jon was on his left side and didn’t see a wound. Dad!

I cheerfully chatted with Bob for a while who said he was working on a recycled latex beaver creation for the festival and thinking about having his neighbor pull it in a wagon for the children’s procession. He said they have already printed a copy of the festival sign and hung it in the window at Ally cats! Then one of our regular kit-yearlings, the larger one, came nuzzling over the dam and gave a slow paddle back towards the footbridge, reminding us with his size that we really had seen an adult.

Let’s hope that Dad doesn’t take one look at that noisy opening and kayak filled creek and thing “this neighborhood has gone to the dogs’ and disappear again! If he stays expect him to repack the primary tonight and fix the secondary tomorrow. What a perfect omen for this year’s festival!

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.

Where did THAT come from?

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Recent Sightings June 29, 2011

Alaska, apparently, but we had hard rain long enough to top both dams yesterday and make things a little more tenuous at the beaver ponds. This morning I saw ‘Reed’ slathering mud on the secondary and his sibling coming languidly back from downstream to check if he was done yet. Also a raccoon doing the breast stroke and a muskrat swimming in a manner I can only describe as ‘anxious’ out of the bank hole as soon as the beaver came back.

The pipe isn’t plugged NOW at any rate! The primary looks fairly robust, but the secondary showed some wear. It held up better than I expected. Obviously its not ALL made of reeds.

Well there’s no rest for the weary. Sigh. I received several emails yesterday containing only swear words from many a beaver lover who knows how hard these kids have worked on their dams, but honestly the beavers seemed to take it in stride. There are some problems beavers can’t fix. They can’t stop people from telling lies about them and they can’t prove that their relatives used to live in the Sierras. They can’t show family pictures of salmon comfortably leaping over their dams. They can’t publish a dissertation about how raising the watertable actually expands the riparian border even when they remove trees. Our beavers relied on us to stop the city, to keep away the trappers, and to limit the sheetpile.

But this one they can handle on their own.

Oh and for the record, rain on your wedding day is just inconvenient – not ironic. A divorce on your wedding day would be ironic. Or rain on the day you just installed a sprinkler system.

Just saying.

Oh and check out the lovely new brochure design from Amelia Niemi and Lorena Castillo. Isn’t it fantastic?

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.