You would think, with the hours and years of my life I have spent watching beavers and analyzing their footage and staring at photos I would have seen every SINGLE thing I could possibly see about them. Every nuance. Every detail. There are posts, for example, where I talk about nothing but their eyebrows or how to tell our beaver noses from muskrat or castor fiber noses.
I thought I’d seen it all. I was wrong.I let you all down. I’m so sorry.
Last night, filmmaker Sarah Koenigsberg posted this image to announce her upcoming screening in Scotts Valley. And my head went whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa so loud you could hear it next door.
You see it to right? That pink little tongue as if a beaver was a cocker spaniel. I asked Sarah “was that beaver sick or stressed?” And she said no, she saw it on all kinds of beavers everywhere she filmed. A darting tongue that would just pop out usually just before or after they were finishing a meal.
Photoshop is a dangerous tool in the wrong hands. Was this changed or colored? No, she promised and posted footage of beavers eating so I could see it myself. I wish I could share them here but I hope to soon. Beavers chewing and that tiny tongue lapping up that last bit of flavor.
Of course I asked others, Cheryl, Rusty, Jon, Jari Osborne who made the famous beaver film. have you ever seen this? Suzi Eszterhas with her huge camera lens who photographed them for months. Is it just me not paying attention?
I scoured my own footage. Surely I had seen it somewhere hadn’t I? had anyone else picked it up?
Even if you slow that down don’t see anything, Try it yourself using the wheel on the bottom and select ‘playback speed’ .25.
Nothing. To a man my fellow beaver photographers were all shocked and had never ever seen this. Sarah thinks it is because she’s scrolling through footage frame by frame on a huge screen that she noticed. Maybe,
And then I remembered ancient ancient footage that Moses had first shot of our 2008 kit when he was first seen trying to feed atop the lodge. In the very beginning seconds he was in the water you see a little. I remember when we saw it we were commenting that it appeared like he was just in between learning to eat leaves and nursing, because he kind of chewing and spitting at the same time saying “Ew this isn’t dinner!”
It’s in the very first few seconds that you see tongue. Nothing like that still of Sarah’s. Beaver tongues must be very very short, and nothing like a dogs, But its there all the same. Oh and you should watch all the way to the end and see him fall off the lodge and plop into the water. That’s pretty adorable.
Though not nearly as adorable as this. I guess we live and learn.
