Remember Susan Allen’s lovely beaver beatitudes last month on her program Open Range? Well I wrote her full of appreciation and she wanted to do a short interview for a future program. Here it is in all its brief beaver glory! Click to play.
I found this lovely footage of beaver grooming, eating, swimming and vocalizing from Sue McMurtrie on Youtube. Slocan lake is just north of Washington over the border, and is a beautifully natural spot. Enjoy!
So Jon met one of the teachers from the field trip at the beaver dam last night! She just had to see them for herself! Apparently two children from her class came down wednesday and saw two kits and an adult! They described the adult as ‘mom’ (I didn’t want to trigger the abandonment panic by telling 60 7 year olds that mom died) so the adult must have been nuzzling with a kit or letting him take a back ride. The kids were SO excited they were celebrities for the day and the class couldn’t get any work done.
Sweet!
I also wanted to pause this morning and remind you all to look at the webcam in the early hours by clicking on the green arrow in the left hand margin. Sometimes it is true you see nothing, but when the beavers happen to stroll by they are a delight to view! Eyes closed and methodically grooming, or carefully chewing the bark off of one of their stored sticks. Yesterday there was a kit on the left side and a adult coming out of the water, brushing off the glistening drops. It made me realize that having a wet beaver anywhere near a dry one must be an irritation, like when you’re laying in the sun and your brother gets out of the pool and shakes the water from his hair at you.
The dry, sleeping kit didn’t produce the squeal of a human in a similar situation, but he did wiggle his nose in irritation, and end up moving out of the way. Then the big beaver expanded into the empty space and kept grooming, eventually sitting on the little beaver’s nose which caused another upset. Beavers must be pretty good-natured to live at such close quarters with five or six family members for three months. I won’t even speculate what it be like for humans.
Hopefully we’ll get more child visitors this weekend. Don’t forget to look at the webcam!
