So the tap on my door yesterday turned out to be Moses with his camera bag, only instead of toting around the usual video camera that has practically become a regular Martinez landmark, the bag held an injured belted kingfisher. He had found it flapping around the primary dam and it couldn’t fly for more than a few feet. He had eventually managed to catch it with the help of the beaver-attentive homeless man Robert. Could I arrange to bring it to the Lindsay Museum for rehab?
So we transferred the very large bird with an impossibly long bill to a paper bag for safe keeping, and gave Moses back his camera case. Then I called Cheryl Reynolds to check in just to make sure what to do next. She said that rehab of Kingfishers was VERY tricky and that Lindsay would almost certainly bring the bird to International Bird Rescue where she works. She mulled whether it was better for the bird to go straight to Fairfield, but ultimately decided it would be best for a vet to see him right away and get her stabilized.
Jon was at work and Lory was out of town so I I drove alone in the Subaru, (where mom beaver had once had ridden ironically nearly two years ago to the day), with the bird fluttering inside her bag on the front seat. I say ‘her’ because she seemed to have an observable red chest band. As I drove, I thought of my personal history of bringing animals to Lindsay over the course of my life. A seagull. A thrush. A goldfinch. A pond turtle. And a tiny field mouse, which they did not take. At their advice we fed the baby fieldmouse puppy milk out of an eye dropper ourselves and he grew up from a ‘teaspoon’ to a ‘tablespoon’ in a short week. It was a strange lesson in animal husbandry, but perhaps paved the way for advanced rodent guardianship later on. After the week we put him back at Briones where we found him.
I delivered the bird to the healers at Lindsay. The receiving woman took down his information politely, “you say he’s from the Martinez Beaver dam? You mean the famous one?”. Yes, indeed. Good luck, Mr. Kingfisher. Your bright colors and swooping dives make for beautiful watching at the dams! Get well fast!
A couple more odds and ends to brighten your Sunday. Last night the father beaver movie topped 60,000! And as I was surfing about I found this article and thought, wait a minute, who’s calling themselves an accidental beaver advocate? That’s MY line! Someone’s stealing my material!
I became an accidental beaver advocate when some moved into our local stream and the city wanted to kill them. I started a group called ‘Worth A Dam’ to teach others about their value and how to solve problems. I organize a yearly beaver festival and am working with a group in California to reeducate our state about beaver value and historic prevalence.
Oh wait, that IS me. Just not my name. Whew, but hey….. My letter to the naturalist from New Hampshire was added to Stacey Cole’s most recent article. I suppose he feels he is protecting my honor by obliquely referring to me as a ‘reader in lafayette’ but when our Maine friend saw this letter she got excited that there was some local beaver contact she didn’t know. She called Stacey directly yesterday! He’s 90 years old and has beavers living on his land who are running out of food. He is having willow brought in to persuade them to stay! God bless Stacey, and Lega for that matter!
Okay, now for a quick round of “BEAVER or NOT” from Ohio Nature Research Photography and Videography. You know one of those sites where you can BUY shots labeled as beaver and run them in your alarmist article about beavers because, you know, you never actually saw one. 
Look familiar? It should because that tiny little face with a white muzzle and whiskered button nose is a muskrat. A muskrat! Why do people get away with this? They’d never be able to sell a picture of a hummingbird as an eagle? Anyway, the photographer saw their ‘conical house’ and knew they were beavers. Sheesh. Of course I wrote them and I bet they are BESIDE themselves struggling to correct the mistake.
Now for a treat of epic proportions, check out the just released video from our friends at Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife. I know you are busy and people don’t always have time to click on videos but it’s Sunday, I know you well enough to know you want to so JUST DO IT.
