Natural History of the Chicago region

Several people were very kind about my happy little post yesterday, and I was excited to find this in my beaver wanderings. It seems almost fated find it now.

“Even in an area teeming with millions of people, the marvels wrought by this amazing animal can still unfold. On a forest preserve land in northern Cook County, beavers transformed what had been an ordinary field into a beautiful open water cattail marsh. In early April, hundreds of newly arrived tree swallows skimmed the smooth surface for insects. Painted turtles soaked in the spring sun, and chorus frogs filled the air with music. Yellow-headed blackbirds, pied-billed grebes, great blue herons, and other water-dependent birds nested or tarried during migration …. Then, after a few years, the beaver disappeared. There hasn’t been as much water or wildlife since, but some day a young beaver looking for a home of its own will come upon the site, find it hospitable and stay.”

Isn’t that a beautiful quote? I happened upon it when I found this nice article from The Illinois Steward, which immediately got my attention by leading with a quote from Enos Mills. The careful author, Susan Post, also read up on beavers with Dietland Muller-Swarze, so I was liking her even before she rewarded me with Greenberg. You can see why;

In a Place Called Illinois: Watchable Wildlife: Beaver

On a recent March visit to Heron Pond, a part of the Cache River State Natural Area, it was a duck-kind of day, gray and raining. There were no wildflowers blooming, and birds were hidden or silent. Yet there was a lot to see and ponder. I noticed an increase in beaver activity. Quite a few small cypress saplings had been cut; along the boardwalks, I noticed many debarked twigs and branches, several trees bore scars from gnawing, and some new raised mounds had appeared. Back in Champaign, I visited our library, where I discovered the book The Beaver, Nat-ural History of a Wetlands Engineer by Dietland Muller–Schwarze and Lixing Sun; and I talked with Illinois Natural History Survey mammalogist Joe Merrit. My observations took on new meaning; they were more than just visions of gnawed wood!

The work of beaver helps maintain a healthy hydrologic balance. Their dams help replenish the water table and store water. Stored water and a raised water table are helpful to plants and animals during a drought. The water-flow pattern is altered, reducing erosion. When they open up forests along the streams, they create new habitats—ponds, swamps, and meadows. New habitat attracts other organisms, and soon a complex community develops.

Can I get an amen? Nice work, Susan! We shouldn’t be surprised, because there has been, over the years, a fluttering of beaver advocacy from the state. Donald Hey, founder of the Wetlands Initiative, is a huge beaver believer, and the Lincoln Park beavers received pretty significant media attention and public backing. It is also the source of one of my favorite urban beaver photos. This is a fence at Lincoln Park with a beaver lodge behind it. Don’t you wonder what it sounded like when you walk by?

A week from now Worth A Dam will be doing a tree planting with the watershed steward intern, and the documentary crew from the UK might want to film it and visit. We’ll see. I was horrified to learn yesterday that I received a my first youtube STRIKE for sharing the recent video of the Devon beavers. I had to go to copy right school and everything. I am more mortified than I should probably be I guess. But lets just pause and remember how adorable that footage was of mom beaver moving the kits to the second lodge. Ahh. Maybe it was worth it.