Young George and his Mom discovered a new beaver pond not far from the house this afternoon while I was out teaching in the Park. “G” was asked if he would so kind as to guide his dad back to the pond this evening to see if we could spot the elusive beavers (known by our own term Castor elusivensis, instead of the proper Latin of C. canadensis). I had promised to teach him a secret trick to spotting/calling them in and he agreed to show me his circuitous route—through all manner of briar and bramble as it turns out—to the colony’s sanctum sanctorum. Our plan was set!
King of the lodge
Reflections and beaver-peeled sticks in the placid water of the pond.
After dinner we set off in the truck. From the moment we parked and got out of the vehicle, he dashed ahead, turning back only long enough to wave an encouraging hand and say, “come on dad, follow me!” The beaver have obviously been doing their job as the sound of running water could be heard before we even approached the creek/pond corridor. Naturally, George’s “best route” was engineered for someone half my height, but it led us to an area profoundly marked by these rodent lumberjacks. Young aspen trees were knocked down or completely missing: gnawed stumps protruded everywhere.
The beaver’s little cousin, the muskrat, seems to be taking advantage of the new water feature.
My guide led me across log bridges, stick roads and through tunnels of willow and alder to the crown jewel of the excursion—the beavers’ lodge. True to 7-year-old form, we took our watching post atop the apex of the mud and stick dwelling itself. Though any beaver in its right mind would be nuts to leave with two large monsters on the roof, we set up watch anyway. “Watch for lines of bubbles,” I tell G. When a beaver leaves its lodge, it goes from the cozy dry confines of its den into the water and air bubbles are squeezed out of its coat; as it swims, a line of sequential emerging bubbles surface from below; betraying the direction of its travel. In the winter, these bubbles freeze to the bottom of the otherwise clear ice and make a cloudy, opaque stripe leading away from the lodge. This ice-bubble line tells you exactly where the front door is. We watch the water and George “helps” the beavers by picking a peeled log out of the pond at the water’s edge and places it further up on the mound. Sitting still is hard when beavers take their own sweet, castor time. In the end, we only got to see a muskrat pair cruising about the submerged alders. There was no chance to demonstrate the patented, “Bumann Castor calling technique” before the light faded, but my hunch is that we’ll have another chance…
Setting sun over Electric Peak.