This morning we waited and waited for beavers. Cheryl had to leave at 7:30 and I promised myself I’d stay until 7:45. As I despaired at the lost water and broken dams I thought maybe our beavers were holed up farther down stream. I had almost decided to leave, when I saw a telltale stick coming upstream.
Ahh what a beautiful sight! I got especially excited when I saw she/he would have to cross over the stump of dam to get back to the hole they appear to be using. As they came closer I filmed this:
So yesterday I chased down all the beaver experts I know to ask about Monday’s footage of bringing the tree home. I knew beavers in frozen areas store branches underwater to use as food later. But do they ever store branches as building material? No idea says half of the beaver world and probably not says the other half. To be fair, there are ZERO temperate zone beaver experts, so we may need to create some. I was told ‘why wouldn’t branches be washed away in the storm?’ which is logical, but wouldn’t that happen for a food cache too? And ‘how could beavers plan ahead that far?’ which is a good question in theory but aren’t food cache’s a kind of planning ahead? Anyway, my mind isn’t made up, but I’ll keep watching and thinking.
Oh and my work ethic hasn’t been bad, either.
