Monday, March 30, 2015

Beavers Emerge From the Ice

We were all pleased to find that our beaver colony made it through this record breaking cold winter. All 9 members were accounted for this week as the ice finally receded from the their main pond. Of course, just lately the ice has been reforming at night, but thin ice is no problem for beavers to deal with. In fact they seem to relish busting it up in their various ways.
Julia swims just beneath the ice

Beaver heads make great ice-breakers

Breaking ice with your back also works surprisingly well
Wen (1-year old) and Tippy (3-year old) often emerge from the lodge together
Tippy comes out of the water to ask for a carrot
Another 1-year old scores an apple
Extracting a carrot from the dam
GenLo manages to hold both a carrot and an apple piece - this trick is a hard one for most beavers to manage
Snacks are disappearing in all directions
Checking to see if there are more carrots on the dam
Julia, the colony's matriarch, is the most adept at breaking ice
Wherever she goes in the pond, Julia makes it a point to break ice 
Wen brings a mouth full of Pussy Willow branches back o the lodge
Julia comes for some branches - note the ice on her head
Posing by the dam
Muskrat under ice
Three Muskrats seek out beaver snacks
A Muskrat coming up onto the snow
Muskrats searching for overlooked carrot pieces
The muskrat lodge towers over the ice in the second pond
Still lots of ice-breaking left to do

3 comments:

  1. This is very, very cool. I have a huge beaver pond across the road from my house. I love watching the beaver. My favorite neighbors. I enjoy this blog. Marianne

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  2. Fabulous pictures, thanks for sharing,. Over here in Martinez CA we have the beavers-but not the ice. Fun to see!

    Heidi Perryman
    Worth A Dam
    www.martinezbeavers.org

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  3. Wonderful that all survived this hard winter—and emerged in time for International Beaver Day, April 7. More reason than ever to appreciate nature's engineers with the droughts out West. Great photos of muskrats too.
    Sharon & Owen, Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife

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