Tag: Mary Holland

Naturally Curious about Beavers

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's saving beavers now? October 29, 2014

Naturally Curious: Ecosystem Engineers

Wetlands are crucial — roughly 85 percent of all native North American wildlife relies on them — and throughout most of North America wetlands are highly correlated with beavers.

When the beaver population plummeted due to fur trade in the 18th and 19th centuries, the number of beaver wetlands did as well. Today, beavers number around 6 million to 12 million, and the number of ponds is estimated to be between 1.5 million and 7.7 million. This had an enormous impact on the flora and fauna in and around these wetlands, changing the distribution and abundance of many plants and animals.

dt.common.streams.StreamServer.cls — Naturally Curious: Ecosystem Engineers
Beavers are one, if not the only, species capable of changing the geological, chemical and biological properties of the landscape to suit their needs.

If you want to know why the state of New Hampshire is having such positive public support for beavers, it’s entirely because of articles like this. Mary Holland is a talented author and breathtaking photographer who donated generously to our silent auction in the past. She likes to write about beavers sometimes, but this is the most glowing advocacy I’ve seen from her yet. I’m hoping that we influenced her work in some small way. There is so much I want to share I can barely pick and chose. Make sure you click on her article just so she gets credit for this remarkable work. Here’s a treasure hunt for motivation: there is one thing she got wrong. But only one. See if you can find it.

Vegetation

Studies have shown that by increasing the diversity of habitats, beavers increase the number of species of herbaceous plants. By expanding wetland habitat, beavers provide an ecological opportunity for new plant species. The riparian vegetation — plants on a pond’s banks — not only increases in number of species, but the vegetation becomes denser as a result of beaver activity.

Insects

A beaver dam slows the current of a stream and increases deposition of nutrient-rich sediment and organic material in the water. This plays a key role in the development of insect life. The variety and density of species increases, providing more food for fish, birds and mammals. Although one would think that the presence of a beaver pond might increase

Fish

As one would expect, there is a shift in fish species, just as there is in insect species, as the rapidly flow ing stream is converted to the stillness and increased warmth of a pond. Studies have shown that fish species richness increases with the size of a pond, but even very small beaver ponds can have higher than expected richness compared to ponds of a similar size not impounded by beaver dams.

Contrary to popular belief, beaver ponds have been shown to have a beneficial effect on trout and salmon populations. Loss of beaver ponds has been correlated with a significant reduction in salmon production. Beaver dams are typically not barriers to fish — they find ways of passing through them, except when stream levels are very low.

Amphibians and Reptiles

Beaver ponds create an ideal habitat for amphibians. Reptiles also fare well in beaver ponds, especially older beaver ponds. There is greater species diversity of snakes and turtles in older ponds than younger ones, but even younger beaver ponds usually have more species than undammed streams.

Mammals

A wide variety and number of mammals uses the lush vegetation around beaver ponds as food and cover. An increased production of woody plants (vigorous shoot growth at beaver-cut stumps) and aquatic vegetation attracts browsing moose and deer. Water-loving muskrats, otters, raccoons and mink frequent beaver ponds for food and shelter.

Birds

The creation of an aquatic habitat necessarily will attract different species of birds than a forest habitat. Significantly more bird species have been found at active beaver ponds than abandoned beaver ponds and control sites with no history of beaver occupation. Waterfowl use beaver ponds for nesting and rearing young, and as stopover sites during migration.

Mary’s Closing argument:

Humans may disagree about the advantages and disadvantages of having beavers as neighbors, but there is no disputing the fact that beavers play an important role in preserving biological diversity.

And THAT’s what the New York Times SHOULD have said. (By the way I just heard that the NYT beaver article is tracking as the 6th most emailed!)

Thank you so much Mary for singing beaver praises with such passion and timbre! We are grateful for your eloquence, talent and veracity. I’m sorry the grey lady pushed your work out of the spotlight for a whole day, but I am so thrilled to promote your work now!

And if you need a little more illustration to the argument that beavers create habitat, here’s some recent footage from Rusty Cohn in Napa showing an unexpected visitor to the beaver dam. He wondered, fox or coyote? So I sent it to the expert. This morning Camila wrote back: COYOTE!

We have been so inspired by his work we tried our own trail cam last night for the first time, but all we got was the “Lesser-spotted-Moses” hard at working cleaning up a tree so the city wouldn’t be annoyed at the beavers. Recognize this species?

Another round of “Blame the beaver” in Massachusetts

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions April 8, 2014

The driveway at 26 Mount Jefferson Road all but washed away after a beaver dam on a small pond nearby let go Sunday afternoon, causing a damaging torrent of water to race down the road. (T&G Staff/CHRISTINE PETERSON)

Breached beaver dam closes Mount Jefferson Road in Hubbardston

HUBBARDSTON — The breach of a beaver dam Sunday along Mount Jefferson Road wasn’t bad, unless you live in Marjorie Filleul’s house at No. 26. “The water came from the street into our front yard. It ruined our driveway and made a couple of ponds in the back,” Ms. Filleul said. Some of the water ended up in her basement, as well.

The flooding closed the road as crews worked to plow away the rocks and debris that landed there, she said. Photographs from the scene show damage to the roadway and swaths cut across yards by the rush of water.

Never mind that there was about 5 inches of rain last month in Hubbardston and more in April. It’s gotta be the beaver’s fault because who else can you blame? At least there WAS a beaver dam in beaver-challenged Massachusetts. People who let it stay near or on their property. Although that might not happen again, after this story.

Because driveways never flood without beavers.

A nice article on identifying active beaver lodges after snowmelt from naturalist Mary Holland. Of course it’s absolutely no use at all in Martinez, but you’ll enjoy it anyway.

Beaver ponds have finally started to melt, making it easy to determine whether or not there have been beavers living in any existing lodges over the winter. The tell-tale sign is floating de-barked sticks and branches. During the winter, beavers leave their lodge and swim out to their underwater food supply pile and haul branches back into the lodge where they chew them into foot-long pieces for easy handling. The bark is removed and eaten as the beaver holds the stick and turns it, much as we consume corn on the cob. When little or no bark remains, the stick is discarded out in the open water. These sticks remain hidden underneath the ice on the surface of the water until warm weather arrives and the ice begins to melt. At this point the sticks and branches become visible, and often extend several feet out from the lodge. These sticks will not go to waste, but will be used for dam and lodge repairs. (Photo taken standing on lodge.)

Nice tip, Mary! I will make sure our sierra beaver friends see it. Mary has the brilliant attention to detail and observation skills that has turned into a very successful website and several well-respected books. I am always thrilled to see what she has written and photographed.

Still, our beaver friend and photographer Ann Siegal and myself both had the same reaction about the last line. “Ack! Don’t Stand on The Lodge!” we both said instinctively when we read that. Maybe because we’re used to beavers in more urban areas where there are many more curious feet to worry about. Or maybe we’re just beaver-centric. I admit, I’ve seen footage of bears, cougars, beavers and other heavy things standing on the lodge and not falling through. But she saw a high school student fall through one! Why risk it? Just imagine if baby beavers were sleeping inside and you crushed them!

When I went to her site I saw that she just published a children’s book on beavers so of course you know what I did.

Along a stream a dam pops out of the water. Beavers are busy at work! These aquatic mammals have unique traits that aid them in building the perfect lodge to raise young beavers and keep predators away. Mary Holland’s vibrant photographs document the beavers’ activities through the course of a year. Do these beavers ever take a break? Follow along as they pop through the winter ice to begin the busy year of eating bark, building dams and gathering food just in time for winter to come again.

Someone get me a cup of tea and a cozy chair, I know just what I’m doing for the next half hour! Mary kindly wrote me back that same day:

What a great event and poster you have, for such a worthy cause! I have forwarded your email to my publisher and asked if they would send you a copy of THE BEAVERS’ BUSY YEAR. If they don’t, I will – I’ve asked them to let me know, but if you don’t hear from them within a week or so, would you let me know and I’ll put a copy in the mail to you. Congratulations on the success of your project! Mary

Thanks Mary! The publisher wrote me this morning and is sending a copy forthwith. If you can’t wait for summer to get your own, go here to support her lovely work. Mary lives in Vermont, the same state as Skip Lisle who installed our flow device, which we are not at all surprised about. The same state as many good beaver articles. Let’s hope we get another lodge some day to be careful of, and just remember that it never hurts to ask…

The real sign of the beaver!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Dispersal, Friends of Martinez Beavers, pictures May 21, 2013

Naturally Curious: Scented Signposts

Mary Holland

When they disperse, most young beavers go downstream to look for unoccupied territory. Ideally they come upon an old, abandoned beaver pond that has regrown a good supply of aspens, willows and birches — a beaver’s preferred diet. However, young beavers are rarely that lucky. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility for these young upstarts to attempt to move into an inhabited pond site, so resident beavers take measures to alertthese youngsters that the pond is spoken for.

In an attempt to discourage young beavers from lingering, one of the first things adult beavers do in the spring is to mark the perimeter of their territory. They do so by gathering mud and leaves from the bottom of their pond and making piles, or “scent mounds” to advertise their presence as well as ownership to any beavers passing by. They deposit castoreum, a secretion that conveys information such as the beaver’s age and sex, on each mound by straddling it, everting their castoreum sacs and dragging them across the mound. Scent mounds vary in size, from a height of just a few inches, to three feet or so and they are usually located within two feet from the water’s edge. The pheromones in the castoreum are broadcast far and wide from these mounds. An encroaching 2-year-old beaver detects the odor, and, if it is smart, continues on its way. If a stray male beaver deposits some of his own scent on a resident’s scent mound, or stops to feed, the resident male drives him off by hissing loudly, and if that doesn’t work, he attacks the interloper.

This is a nice article about a little appreciated beaver behavior that really only gets talked about at all if we’re complaining that castoreum is used in strawberry flavoring, or some such nonsense. Scent marking is essential to beaver survival and indirectly lead to the success of the fur trade – since even once metal traps were invented, trappers had no idea what to bait them with, until someone accidentally tried castoreum! Wham! Instant beaver!

We have been avidly looking for scent mounds in Martinez, but never spotted any. We’ve even asked visiting beaver experts to hunt them down with no avail. Where ever our beavers are marking their territory, we it’s a secret we haven’t yet uncovered. Mary’s article is on the Valley news site and definitely worth a read, but the paper has an impolite subscription policy that might not let you come back so just between us shhh.

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Late-breaking news: our friend Malcom Kenton of Washington D.C. was inspired enough by beavers to write his own ballad and he’s looking for a musician! Here’s a taste but you really should go read the rest of it!

Many of fur and fin and feather all would gather ’round

Where pools of still, deep water were plenty to be found,

Made by a flat-tailed engineer whose works helped shape the land.

The beaver, steward of the continent’s streams, made ponds and wetlands so grand.

Inspired yet? Cheryl took this photo last night of some hard working-stewardship happening at the secondary dam!

Beaver Mudding: Cheryl Reynolds

Curiouser and Curioser

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Environmental December 27, 2011

When I worry that our beavers have to contend with poor water quality, garbage trucks, beer bottles, train whistles, restaurant lights, city workers, floating styrofoam cups and the occasional shopping cart, I think about beaver cousins in colder climates where the pond freezes and they have to store enough food underwater to make it through the winter. Early on they reportedly make a concerted effort to “break the ice” by poking their heads through at intervals. Remember beavers breathe air like us and they want to make sure they can get through to the air when they reach their destination. .

11-7-11-beaver-breaking-ice2-img_4324 — Beaver Breaking Ice: Mary Holland

The naturalist behind this lovely photograph is Mary Holland, who resides in Vermont and recently published the irresistible book “Naturally Curious“. She maintains a nature blog of the same name and has an open-hearted wonder for the living world outside that regards with equal delight loon chicks, dragonfly larvae or scat samples.

Mary says she is especially interested in ponds and is a big fan of beavers. She once crashed through a frozen beaver pond wearing snowshoes and that’s got to test any relationship! Since she lives about 38 miles away from Skip Lisle, I can only assume they’ve met. Why they’re not teaming up for a speaking tour touting beaver ponds as the trickle down economy that will make more nature to be “Naturally Curious” about we can only speculate.

You can bet I’ll suggest it.

Watch Mary Holland on PBS. See more from Profile.