Beaver Tale

More than a month ago on a day that had dawned with a misty rain falling, a misty rain that continued throughout the morning and early afternoon. As we ate supper the precipitation ended and that was all it took for me to decide to head for a nearby beaver pond.

This is a beaver pond that I’ve walked past and where I’ve photographed waterfowl. The dam has been in good repair, but I’ve never seen a fresh-cut stump nor a lodge nor a beaver – although there are a lot of old stumps. The beaver pond is less than three miles from the house as the crow flies, but I’m not endowed with wings so I drove a circuitous route as far as I could and walked the last half mile.

Taking a seat at the end of the dam, I set the camera with its longest lens on my monopod. It wasn’t long before my expectations were realized and a beaver appeared –

From where had it come? At that point it was clear that the beavers didn't have a lodge but were instead what are called “bank beavers”, living in an underground burrow at the edge of the pond.

After a few minutes a second, smaller beaver appeared but it quickly swam behind a clump of arrowhead, a plant at home in wetlands and along the edge of ponds, and disappeared from view –

Meanwhile the larger beaver continued to swim in “S” curves and gradually work its way toward me –

It would get just so close and then turn, swim away and repeat the whole process. After more than a half hour it apparently had enough of that –

As I waited for the beavers to reappear I had plenty of time to look around the pond and its bordering wetland –

Far across the pond a Baltimore oriole hunted insect larvae in a tree –

A band of young wood ducks also hunted insects, but they searched among the pond lilies –

Not too far away a solitary sandpiper waded in the shallows –

The sun was setting and the beaver hadn’t reappeared so it was time for me to also head for home. On the way back to the car I came face to face with a cottontail rabbit –

The last wild creature of the day.