Photo: Cheryl Reynolds
One thing you have to admire about beavers is their commitment to work. Oh its nothing like our TypeA/driven/greedy/soulless workaholic-ism. It’s completely different. Do you remember inventing a new game as a child? It was wholly absorbing until mom brought grilled cheese sandwiches and then you were munchingly engrossed in lunch and laughing about emily’s hair sticking straight up, and then after lunch back to the game only you made three changes so that new people could play and instead of a butterfly restaurant you were a zoo keeper whose crocodile could paint.
This is the ambling, creative, purposeful way that beavers work. They don’t ever expect to be finished, and they don’t mind at all stopping to munch a willow branch or wrestle with their brother. They are happy to work alone, and equally happy to share the load. They might do very little, or an exhausting lot, depending on the materials, the moment and their mood. If there is a way to be a “zen workaholic” beavers have found it.
Which is offered by way of introduction to the new goings on at the footbridge lately. Cheryl went down yesterday to help a visiting Humbolt student make plaster casts of beaver footprints, and noticed some new activity in the first scrape, upstream of the footbridge. The photo is of a new dam-let to the right of the creek in the scrape, entirely made of mud and tulles, and bordered by a lovely new channel the beavers have dug right to the center of the tulles. The picture above is taken from the upstream corner, facing the footbridge, with the actual creek not shown but running along to the left.
Beaver canals are an important addition, and one we’ve been waiting for. Also a mysterious pile of dirt that I think is a scent mound, which is another expected (but until now not seen) addition. Jon saw what might have been “scenting” behavior yesterday as a large beaver climbed onto the dam several times. We recently learned that these mounds can be both a “keep out” sign to other beavers, and a “SWF” personal ad for a beaver whose lost its mate or is looking for one. All in all its a pretty exciting development for the end of November. Maybe you’ll want to stop by and see for yourself.
