Recent Sightings – Page 8

Yearling News

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Recent Sightings May 28, 2010

Yesterday morning Mom beaver was seen chewing willow with another, mostly adult beaver that was not dad. We were thinking our three yearlings, not seen since March, had moved on to seek their fortunes. Apparently at least one of them is still around.

Yearlings “disperse” around their second year and head off looking for territory of their own. They will go anywhere from 2-30 miles away looking for a place to call home. Sometimes you hear the very strong belief that “beavers always go down stream from their parents”, but obviously if that were true by now all the beavers in the world would be in the ocean. In fact, several dissertations have been done on this subject, and it turns out that slightly more yearlings go upstream than downstream, but that the ones that go upstream are more likely to come back.

“Coming back” is an interesting thing beaver families allow. Although they wouldn’t let another beaver move into the territory, they will let yearlings come back and hang out with the colony for a while. Every family member recognizes them by their scent. Beavers are the only animal besides porcupines where the females “disperse” for greater distance than the males. This again speaks to how importantly the beaver family is a matriarchal society. It’s important to note that as unlikely as it seems, dispersal also happens over land. Beavers walk their way to freedom, and often when we are at displays or events the most prominent story we hear from strangers is that “once they saw a beaver hit by a car.” In fact, more people have probably seen a dead beaver than a live one, I guess because they stay still longer.

At any rate, one of our yearlings is in the lodge still, and whether this means he didn’t ever leave, or he’s come back to try again, we have a family of at least three, possibly more. Interestingly mom was seen swimming upstream last night, past Starbucks, past ward street and towards where the creek is under cement. Not sure what that’s about, but very interesting to ponder.

“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

“Unprecedented”. “Nobody could have predicted”. “Never before”. These words keep getting used to describe the oil volcano that is busily digesting its plug at the moment. Here’s some very smart reporting showing you that this isn’t as unexpected or new as you might think.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Bats on Parade

heidi08 New Species, Recent Sightings May 27, 2010

Early morning visitors to the dam this week have been treated to a spectacular display of winged mammals over and under bridges, over and under trees and swooping back to bed under the clay tiles they call home. These are Mexican freetailed bats, such fast flyers that they are considered the “jets of the bat world”. They prefer to roost in caves but will settle for attics and abandon buildings. They like to be close to water because it draws the insects they eat and also allows them to drink.

The Evening Emergence: Photo © Lynn McBride

A single bat baby is born each summer and must roost on its own. It’s mother must find it to feed, identifying its call out of hundreds or thousands. Before you reach for that phone to call the exterminator you should know that a single colony can consume as much as 250 pounds of insect a night. Every individual can eat 600 mosquitoes a night. Now that’s what I call a bug zapper.

If you head down to the beaver dams after dinner, before they’re out, and you are blessed with sharp ears you can hear them chittering as they get ready to wake up for a night of feeding. These bats migrate every winter to mate, and are among the most widespread mammal we have. However populations are sharply declining, and this is thought to be do to all the insecticides sprayed on their nightly meals.

Our bats are not declining. While you’re looking down in the water for beavers don’t forget to look up for bats. They’re quite a sight.

“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

I have decided to give up trying not to post about the oil in the gulf. It’s on my mind. I want it to be on everyone’s mind. Last night on PBS Newshour BP Managing Director Robert Dudley said that they had deliberately underreported the amount of oil originally so as not to alarm people. The mind reels. The jaw drops. I’ll just post a daily piece of news about the effects or the arrogance or the heroism or the cowardice or the ramifications under my beaver-beat and I promise when they plug the leak I’ll stop.

Needed Comforts

heidi08 Environmental, Recent Sightings May 23, 2010

Last night we stopped down after dinner for a little beaver watching. Mom was out by 7:30 and making the customary rounds. She looked a little scruffier and skinnier but not horrible and her eyes look small but less swollen and affected. She did some graceful display swimming to show off for the visitors from amtrak (who picked up the flier and came to see for themselves) and then some sneaky swimming, leaving a rapid trail of bubbles from the lodge to the dam before she shot up and over and swam downstream. No difficulties moving around, apparently.

The primary dam is tightly woven and lovingly surfaced with mud. It looks better than I’ve seen it in months. And the amtrak people said they watched Dad earlier working on one of the secondary dams down below. Very impressive water management. Maybe he heard about his cousins building the dam visible from space and had a little spurt of jealous motivation. It was warm and familiar to see them and their work and know that even if our yearlings are off on their own and grown up (?) we still have a very active beaver colony.

I know a beaver blog can’t simply act horrified every day at the oil that’s gushing into the gulf, but this week has been beyond terrifying and I can’t help myself. Obama’s decision to form a commission to study the spill should be comforting to no one unless his real plan is to use those weighty prominent members to PLUG THE PIPE. We don’t need to study the leak. We need to STOP IT. They’ll be plenty of time to not-blame BP later. We need to stop the leak, not save oil, not save face, not hide the damage, but STOP THE LEAK. Putting BP in charge of the process is like letting Nazi’s promise to resolve the holocaust by sponsoring a “Truth and Reconciliation” commission. The EPA firmly told them Friday to find a different dispersant, and BP answered very respectfully “you’re not my mom, you can’t make me”. Now scientists are saying that these fragile marshlands might be impossible to clean. Mind you, these are the pathway for 75% of our migrating birds. So remember the next time you take out your binoculars in Oregon, or Colorado or Wisconsin or Quebec and go try to add to your lifelist between now and 2060 you probably won’t get the numbers you’re used to. Don’t believe me? Watch this:

Beaver-week

heidi08 Beaver News, Creative Solutions, Educational, Festival, Recent Sightings, Video May 14, 2010

This has been quite a week for beaver advocacy. Dad beaver made an important tree removal decision so mom has been hanging around eating the remaining branches. She’s coming out around 7:45 so its a very civilized time for beaver viewing. Taryn of Wisconsin writes that there was a town meeting last night with a lot of good feeling and an engineer stepped forward to volunteer his services to protect the culvert and keep the beavers. I also got three confirmations this week for our musical lineup for the beaver festival!

On Wednesday I got a package from Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions containing an early copy of his soon-to-be-released beaver management DVD. Of course you now I dropped everything and got out the popcorn for a preview. I was so pleased and impressed at how clear and understandable he makes this work. Every part of the process is explained in a step-by-step, easy to understand, how-to video. And guess whose lovely beavers frolic in the background!

My footage of the Martinez Beavers is sprinkled throughout the first chapter – Mom coming over the secondary dam and our 2008 yearlings working at repairs. Ahhh what a treat to see them put to such good, beaver-saving use! An impressive testimonial section at the end is filled with burly, public-works-types, saying how they were doubtful at first but now they are grateful it saves them such time and money! At the end is a reference section with other documents about beavers and beaver management, including the ‘what good are beavers’ we collaborated on.

Truly it was a thrilling and affirming moment to see that this work will get easily done by beaver advocates for generations. The package also contained a generous donation to Worth A Dam which I will surely find good use for. All in all it was like one of those graduation moments where you sniff at your child growing up, remember all the late nights and know in your heart how importantly they’re going to contribute. I have it on very best authority that Worth A Dam will get a few copies for auction at the festival, so you can share the moment.

Yesterday I received a lovely thank you note from powerhouse Diane Burgess of Friends of Marsh Creek Watershed for the talk I did there last Thursday. Truly the very best friends beavers could have. Monday I will be giving the same presentation to the Environmental Alliance at the John Muir House and Tuesday our artist Frogard Butler will be helping me tell the beaver story to St. Catherine’s preschoolers. “Once upon a time there was a mommy beaver and a daddy beaver and they looked and looked for just the right place to make a home for their family” Ahhh, that’s going to be fun.

Always an adventure, up on beaver creek!

No rest for the weary…

heidi08 pictures, Recent Sightings March 1, 2010

This weekend had some brief hard rains, and our dams paid the price. Again. The beavers are good sports about these things, and will make speedy repairs. It’s always a great time to see their prowess at work, so if you have time in the morning tomorrow, dash down and catch the end of the show.

Of course not everyone dislikes the rain, and some animals thrive on it. Egrets for example loved the churned up waters and seem to come out in droves. Must be great fishing. This little guy went and waded through the scraped area after I took this. You could see him wiggling his flashy toes under the water to attract the fish.

Expect some changes to the face of the website today, as our generous helper tinkers with the menu bar again. Hopefully it will look like a Christmas window at Macy’s in no time!