Evening at a Beaver Pond

Find a beaver pond and you’ve found a treasure-trove of wildlife from insects to eagles. Go to the pond early in the morning or in the evening and you’re likely to see at least some of the critters that use pond or call it home. If you’re a regular visitor to In Forest and Field you’ve seen earlier posts about some of the species at these wetlands.

This pond has had an active beaver colony for a number of years and has been featured in posts a number of times, including earlier this year. That post included photographs taken on cloudy gray mornings, but in this post we return on a beautiful late spring evening.

It was about 90 minutes before sunset and a beaver was already swimming around in the nearest section of the pond.

It swam in circles for a short while then headed to the far end of the pond. When it was directly across from the lodge, the beaver silently dove and didn’t surface again, presumably it entered the lodge through one of several underwater entrances –

And there it stayed for a while. It wasn’t long before a female wood duck landed, swam over to a fallen tree and climbed aboard –

After less than a minute she took off –

To land atop the tree’s tipped-up root mass –

Meanwhile a female belted kingfisher had landed on a dead white pine; she had dinner in her beak in the form of a pumpkinseed sunfish. Apparently the sunfish was still alive for the kingfisher proceeded to beat it on the limb for well over five minutes. Occasionally she’d give the fish a flip, seemingly to reposition it –

And at long last swallowed her meal –

 

As the light faded the beaver reappeared further down the pond and was joined by another –

One of the beavers swam toward the end of the pond where I sat and swam in circles not far from shore. Curious about what this strange thing sitting on the shore or wary? Only the beaver knows.

With the light fading rapidly it was time to pack up and head home.