Out For A Swim

Morning’s at seven

heidi08 Beaver News, New Species, Recent Sightings January 31, 2010

Look who was visiting the primary dam this morning! Fishing all around the tangled flow device with his greedy appetite. It’s been a good long while since I have seen cormorants that high up in the creek. I remember the eager one when staff first lowered the dam a million (pre-flowdevice) years ago. He came right in the middle of the crowd of workers, determined to be the only mouth at the damside when all those fish were pushed to the drain.

This morning was a foggy, peaceful, and beaver-less visit. I don’t know if I was too early or too late to catch the show, but several people assured me they had been there in the dark. I strolled down to check out the woodduck boxes, and stopped to listen for frogs. The third dam is looking fairly repaired, although the fourth is entirely gone. The damlet and canal were in stark relief because of the nicely low tide. There were plenty of cooperative beaver footprints in view.

Yesterday Jon tried something new to protect the chewed trees at the primary dam. Sand-painting. It has been recommended that painting the trunks with sand discourages beaver nibbling as they dislike the gritty texture. The paint is non-toxic and won’t harm them even if they persevere. We’ll see what happens. He had wire-wrapped them after the new year’s feeding frenzy but the wire disappeared,(whether by overly fastidious staff or beaver-defenders of grand compassion we couldn’t say). The sand isn’t likely to go anywhere, and as the color is matched to the trunk it shouldn’t be a problem for the city.

The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearl’d;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in His heaven—
All’s right with the world!

Robert Browning: Pippa Passes

Crisis Management!

heidi08 City Reports January 22, 2010

One of the most effective subtle terrors in the movie Jurassic Park (which was a not at all subtle movie) was the way that the technology and gadgets designed to protect the visitors all ended up hurting them. From the vehicle slipping over the edge and barely missing the dangling children, to the boy getting hurled off an electric fence when the power went back on, the safety measures gradually became more perilous. The idea that technology can keep you safe was effectively challenged, while the idea that technology can invent things that place you in harms way, was proven again and again.

I mention this because yesterday the cables designed to “protect” the city from massive beaver-generated flooding, came loose from the dam and traveled downstream, snagging wood and debris in an ever growing dam of their very own. Remember these were initally installed in the dam with anchors so the entire structure could be ripped out if necessary in one heroic swoop. There had always been difficulty deciding where on the banks to place this special “bathtub plug”, and Skip’s flow device made it pretty much moot. The cables eventually tangled and worked themselves into chaos. But yesterday the churning waters forced them free and they snaked down stream to catch some action. By the noon the snag was two feet higher than the dam, and we starting to get worried that the problem might make city staff mistakenly blame the dam for the problem.

After hearing from jon that the snag was impossible to dislodge, I weighed my options carefully and called Councilman Mark Ross, letting him know what had happened and asking him to call public works and explain what it needed. To his credit, he left his office and went to the dam to see for himself. By this time the cables were no longer visible, but I assured him they had been reported that morning by to Worth A Dam members. Mark called Bob Cellini who came down with a de-snagging crew.

Worth A Dam was on hand to explain and ward off unwanted solutions, but they needn’t have been. Bob understood that the snag had nothing to do with the dam, and every effort was made to remove it without disruption to the structure. Some low branches were removed that were catching debris but the dam was untouched. To a man, staff was pleasant and protective about the beavers and gracious to Worth A Dam. The director was full of good will, and the city manager showed up as well, happy for the help and scowling at all the non-beaver trash that ends up in our creek.

As they worked tens of people showed up on the banks and bridges, (worried, as we had been worried), that they were “messin’ with” the dam. It was like that scene from witness where the entire town shows up over the line of the hill, coming to help. Worth A Dam did its best to calm their fears and clarify the problem. A single beaver emerged once to check what they were up to, but the entire event went peacefully. The “filter” or roundfence closing the entrance to the pipe had been tipped by the rain, and was also catching debris. They are reported going to try to right it tomorrow using a boat.

Several people remarked on what a different feel the day had. Staff was acting like the beavers were a resource to preserve, not a problem to be resisted. They seemed to think there were much larger problems than the dam all along the entire creek and be grateful for the supportive attention to this particular area. The entire event went as well as I could have possibly hoped, and, aside from feeling weirdly like Alice in wonderland, it was pretty cool.

Of course things could change in a heartbeat. (I dreamt last night they rode up to fix the filter on a jet ski.) But this morning I am still grateful for the hard work and good energy. Oh and just in case we didn’t learn enough yesterday, here’s a great picture that will help you tell a snowy egret and a great egret apart for future reference. Thanks Cheryl!

Photos: Cheryl Reynolds

Biblical Weather

heidi08 Environmental January 21, 2010

Anyone not think about the “ark” story yesterday? Well, I mean, anyone other than the beavers? The secondary dam by the footbridge is looking like less of a bump under the water, but the primary and Skip’s flow device are still standing. We are braced for more today.

Yesterday at my office in Lafayette there was a rumble of thunder and massive flashes of sheetlighting which seemed to be located right atop my buildling. After some exciting pyrotechnics, it started to hail heavily. The sky was nearly white and the balls were, well not quite marble sized, but definitely pea sized. After this remarkable display of weather the sky brightened and there was a MASSIVE rainbow whose two sides spread directly in view.

That was nothing. Jon used the break in weather to rush down to the dam where he saw a very clear double rainbow right above the secondary dam. Ahhhh that would have been a photo to cherish.

IBB: Part two

heidi08 Beavers January 5, 2010

I wrote earlier about “Inscrutable Beaver Behavior” where the beavers do something that either doesn’t make sense or something purposeful whose goal is not yet clear to us. A good recent example is the tree mass nibble at the primary dam, resulting in the taking of the largest willow that fell to the bank.

A savvy observer of beaver behavior (like any one of us) would expect that tree to be sliced and diced by all the family members at a castor-thanksgiving feast. That’s what happened the night they took down the big cottonwood by the corp yard last summer. That’s what happened to the big willow dad removed from the Annex the winter before that. Still, since this tree has found its way to the horizontal position, the beavers seem to have lost interest in it. No one has nibbled on it at all.

It fell onto the bank but obviously some human with a fuzzy understanding of the fact that beavers actually walk onto the bank, worked to push it in the water. That meant it fell on the flow device and was in danger of being removed by city staff and being a “wasted willow”. Jon went down on sunday and cut the heaviest part away, so that at least the top of the tree would likely remain in the water.

When will the feeding begin? Who knows. Will the beavers get to eat the willow before the leaves lose their luster? Who knows. Was the entire tree nibble triggered by the drop in temperature? Who knows.

IBB. Inscrutable beaver behavior. We’ll keep you posted. It might make sense later.

Photo: Heidi Perryman

Familiar Face

heidi08 Beaver News, Beaver Rehabilitation December 26, 2009

So last night I got a call from video man Moses. He’d been out in the wee hours of Christmas Eve shooting a little footage. Seems he got several beavers, some very chewed trees and a lovely sunrise. Guess what else he got footage of? Mom!

We haven’t seen Mother beaver since September, and some of us were more than a little worried she might have died. Her eye had been looking worse and worse, and we assumed her health had something to do with the absence of kits this year. Be that as it may, Moses brought over footage he had taken at 5 in the morning on Christmas that shows her happily chewing and eating willow.

The good news is that her right eye looks better. The bad news is that her left eye looks affected also. This is clearly sticking with her, although neither side looks damp or crusted like it used to do. Jeff Alvarez told us that if she had rubbed off her fur because of an irritation or condition, it would take a good while to grow back, so its hard to know if this will change.

Still, its lovely to see her again, steadily swimming, climbing, foraging and chewing. She was clearly untroubled by her condition and took it in stride. I’ll try that also.