People love to think about beavers in the wintertime. Probably because everything is frozen and out of their way. When things start to thaw and melt we get much less interested.

Cool Critters: Beavers at home during winter – and maybe a muskrat or two

This time of year, it’s hard to beat having a good meal inside a warm, rustic lodge with a waterfront view.

Just ask a beaver.

Beaver lodges aren’t just by the water, they’re below and above it. When temperatures drop, these furry, buck-toothed, flat-tailed animals hunker down in their multilevel dwellings that are warm, safe and stocked with food.

You see, beavers don’t hibernate during winter. Instead, they stay active inside their well-insulated lodges built of sticks, stones and mud. Other than swimming through tunnels beneath the ice, “when ponds are iced over, beavers often spend almost all their time in the lodge,” said Joe Mouser, communications manager for Beavers Northwest, a nonprofit organization based in Washington state.

These beavers are used to icey winters. Not all beavers. Surely our beavers in Martinez never had to enure freezing winters or create a food cache.

Yet this winter is different. Here it is, mid-January, and beavers can be seen skimming across water and waddling on adjacent land. They’re still sleeping, grooming and eating in their lodges, but they’ve increased their time outside. Why?

Probably because temperatures in the Inland Northwest have been so mild, said Mouser. Consquently, our ponds, lakes and creeks remain largely unfrozen. In Western Washington, where the water seldom freezes, beavers spend plenty of time outside their lodges in winter, he said.

Whether a mild or frigid winter, beavers are at home this time of year. All the chewing, logging and hauling they do during the warm season? It’s not just about dams, said wetland wildlife species specialist Shawn Behling of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Washington knows its beavers so well they even know how the east and west differ!

“They spend a good part of late summer and the fall building lodges or beefing up their existing ones,” she said, adding that the semiaquatic rodents are skilled construction workers and ecosystem engineers.

Their jagged, dome-shaped structures, typically 6 feet high and 15 feet in diameter, resemble a tangled heap of sticks. But don’t judge a lodge by its cover.

It is a sturdy network of whittled-smooth sticks, rocks and aquatic vegetation – all sealed with a waterproof mud mixture that also provides insulation. The beavers’ living chambers are situated above the waterline, and two underwater entryways are located below. On the lodge’s roof is an opening that brings in fresh oxygen.

“On very cold days, warmth generated by the beavers’ bodies can cause steam to rise from the ventilation opening – as if their lodge has a chimney,” Behling said.

Who lives inside? A family of beavers – usually the parents, along with one to three yearlings and one to three kits born the previous spring.