Last night’s trip to the dam was nearly a huge disappointment. Since they had been coming out earlier to do repairs we went eagerly at 7:00 to see what could be seen. For what seemed like an eternity we saw only intoxicated Bertola’s diners coming out and talking loudly about urgent things. A muskrat slinked by, followed by an actual rat, but no signs of beavers until 8:00 pm.
Then a single cheerful kit emerged. He nibbled on a few treats, then set himself to work with mud repairing the dam. We had the light so you could see him underwater carrying mudballs atop his front paws and under his chin. (If you want to see how this is done check out the virtual tour footage at 1:40 from Moses which shows mom carrying mud in this way to the lodge.) After a few deep dives he began to get the idea of a beaver “shortcut”.
He started taking mud off the other side of the dam, and carrying it to the gap side! Then of course he started moving sticks. You just know he was saying to himself, “I don’t know why you guys are going all the way over there to get materials, there’s a big pile right here!”
We were still chuckling about that when suddenly it was like a champagne cork popped and all the beavers poured out of the lodge. Honestly, we haven’t seen such a beaver explosion since late summer. There were so many doing so much it was hard to count who was who. All three kits, and then a very large adult slipping over the dam, and then a pretty large adult right near us. At first I thought it was a yearling, but when it turned around we recognized her tail.
Photo: Cheryl Reynolds
MOM! Ahhhh beautiful tail notch of our matriarch! If the beaver near us was mom, the larger one that slinked over the dam could only be Dad. Mom sat there right beside us with a sea of beaver activity all around and munched on her treat as if the last six months had not even happened. It was astounding. Of course she has been seen from time to time, but not by us since October and Sheetpile madness. Last night both eyes looked perfectly healthy, and she looked perfectly astute, digging in between the sticks to find the tasty bits. I wished I could ask her, how have you been? Is the new lodge working out? I’m sorry about your kit. Do you hate that sheetpile as much as we do? I thought of this scene
Then, on through the afternoon, hour after hour…
Till he found them at last! On the three millionth flower!
“My friends!” cried the elephant. “Tell me! Do tell!
Are you safe? Are you sound? Are you whole? Are you well?”
Horton Hears a Who: Dr. Seuss
She did not answer, but she looked all of those things. Two of the kits came to whine about whatever she was doing, and then she did something that made our eyes glow.She walked to the bank and reached up to get a mouthful/armful of hay and swam with it back to the lodge.
Beaver bedding!
Now I have read that beavers bring leaves and grass into the lodge for bedding, and that they actually change it more often than humans did in the middle ages. Still this motion seemed so determined it was impossible not to think of nesting behavior. We felt fairly certain that mom beaver was pregnant. The footage we saw last year of them mating was early January, so mom might be a month along. Beaver gestation is 105-107 days, so May is about right although we don’t seem to spot offspring until June.
It’s a funny thing. We were so happy to see mom again that we floated home, but she seemed to take the great pleasure of seeing us again entirely in stride.
