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Beavers and Eagles

heidi08 Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers October 2, 2009

Tomorrow is the fall open house at Wild Birds unlimited in Pleasant Hill, where they’ll have gifts and great displays including our friends at Mt Diablo Audubon, Native Birds, International Bird Rescue and Research, and of course Worth A Dam to talk about building better bird habitat by letting your beavers stick around. Owner’s Mike and Cecil Williams have been enormous beaver supporters since way back in the dark ages when our valiant beavers were slated for extermination. A visit to their birdy shores is always a great opportunity to connect with friends, meet new contacts, and spread the beaver gospel to true believers.

To be honest, I’ve met a few “non-believers” there as well, what I would call B.A.F.T.C.’s (Beavers Always Flood the Creek) or T.R.O.P’s (They’ll Ruin Our Property). They were much better behaved than those in the city council and public works, and I tried to talk a little reasonable beaver management with them as well. Still, facts are like a sheet too short to cover your toes when a mistaken belief is allowed to stretch on that long.

Why don’t you come by and say hi and meet some amazing people doing great things for our avian community? We can all talk smack about Rossmoor and APHIS together, and you can get another glimpse at the infamous Wishpoosh (Castorides Ohioensis) and think how lucky it is for Martinez that he wasn’t in our creeks! If you missed your chance to have a Worth A Dam original tee shirt of your very own, you can pick one up for a song and help our beavers while you do it! Cheryl and I will be working and we’d be happy to answer questions. Cheryl can even give you some photography advice!

We have just learned that Native Bird Connenctions will also be bringing a Bald Eagle along with their Golden Eagle on Saturday, Oct. 3! The on going educational program will be from 11-3

This is a rare privledge and treat. Don’t miss it and be sure and bring your children and camera.

WBU Fall Open House

Saturday October 3rd

To thank you for making us the #1 bird feeding store in the USA, we have planned a weekend full of shopping, goodies and entertainment not to be missed!!

· Our Annual Fall Seed & Suet sale.

· FREE gift with purchase Sat. 10/3 ONLY*.

· FREE prize drawings (*All free gifts are while supplies last.)

· 10/3 11-3 pm Visit with a Golden Eagle and a surprise avian guest courtesy of Native Bird Connections.

· 10/3 Yvonne Breukers & her plants for birds & butterflies.

Everything you wanted to know about the Martinez Beavers….

heidi08 Beaver News, Educational June 4, 2009

Have you been wondering how many beavers are in the colony now? Why beavers teeth are orange? How long they can stay underwater? How old they are the first time they slap their tails? How Martinez got beavers in the first place?

Boy, are you in luck! Get your questions answered and curiosity sated this Saturday at the very first of its kind Beaver Class at Wild Birds Unlimited in Pleasant Hill. I’ll be showing original footage of our beavers, and talking about their habits and value in the environment. I promise you will see or hear things you never knew before about our beavers, and you will never once look at your watch.

The class is free and upstairs at the Pleasant Hill store, refreshments are provided and Mike and Cecil will assure you a single bird question will not go unanswered either. Stop by and gape at their amazing aviary, pick up some thistle for your goldfinches, make a few new friends and do your part to get up to date on our amazing beavers and their story.

Attentive readers will be scratching their heads thinking, wait, isn’t saturday the tree planting? And you will be right. If you crave some outdoor activity to help beavers, definitely come help Mitchell at the creek. If you are looking for more sedentary fun, come join me at Wild Birds Unlimited. We picked this date ages ago because of the timing of the new kits, and the planting just fell this weekend because of our boy scout’s schedule. We’ll march on bravely, but as always, things work much better if you help.

Our hosts would like you to R.S.V.P. at (925) 798-0303 if you would like to join this class. Don’t be shy. Have your saturday morning coffee with friends of the beavers.

Yes, Virginia. They can have sandy paws…

heidi08 Educational, Friends of Martinez Beavers July 7, 2009

One of most the delightful moments at the Wild Birds Unlimited fair was an approach from a retired teacher named Virginia, who stood patiently while I was talking to someone else and silently waited with a furry beaver puppet on her hand. She explained that her (3rd grade?) elementary classroom had been the “busy beavers” and that a parent who hand made puppets had made her the beaver original.

Now I’m a big fan of folkmanis, but this beaver was adorable, and had the slightly scruffy well loved look that told me he had a very active child-cuddled life.

(You’re all familiar I trust with the story of the velveteen rabbit and what it means for a favorite stuffed animal to become “real”? Well this beaver was well on its way…)

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day. “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Virginia thought that since she wasn’t in the classroom anymore, she would give it to me to use in future child beaver presentations. She had carried it in a plastic baggie all the way to the bird store because she knew Worth A Dam would be there. She was absolutely delighted with the idea that the beaver would continue helping children.

As freely as this gift was offered, I knew it couldn’t be mine. This was a precious totem of her heroic adventures in the classroom battlefield and the light in her eyes told me it reminded her every time she held it why she started teaching in the first place. We agreed that she would keep the puppet, and that she would let me hold it for a while and take a picture with her iphone (of which she spoke so fondly I thought it might also be becoming “real” too…) and she would send me the photo when she could.

The moment I slipped on the puppet I could practically feel the energy and echos of a room full of laughing children. A sudden need to make a beaver voice possessed me, and I knew the first thing out of that beavers mouth would have to be “oh no! mayor rob was trying to kill me!” by the time he got to the sheetpile paneling in their lodge the beaver would have descended into a George Carlin monologue that wasn’t safe for public viewing.

I extracted him unwillingly from my hand, patted the beaver’s head and furry tail and handed him gently back, suggesting she poke some holes in that plastic bag.

Thanks Virginia, for sharing your very special gift with me, and reminding me how our seamstress beavers can thread the needle of community spirit to stich perfect strangers together.