An Evening at the Beaver Pond

It was a beautiful early spring evening; barely a breeze and warm, record setting warm in this age of a changing climate. The last ice on the pond had melted but a few days before and the beavers’ food cache showed signs of use. This was a good night to sit beside the beaver pond to see what was going on.

First up was a muskrat, the little look-alike of the resident beavers. Muskrats weigh but 2-5 pounds and therefore are much smaller than the beavers (35-65 pounds) whose ponds they share. A muskrat swam across the pond, then sampled some of the water lily stems in the beavers’ food cache –

After the muskrat disappeared from view a tree sparrow came by; by the time you read this it probably will have left for its arctic breeding grounds –

The next arrival was a mink; mink frequently make a meal of muskrats. It ran along the dam, then up on the shore and down again, then quickly entered the water where it swam back along the pond's edge –

After a while an adult beaver surfaced, swam over to the food cache and began feeding on some of the water lily stems stored there –

It fed for quite a while before noticing the human with a camera watching it. With that it stopped feeding and swam around its pond –

Quietly it submerged, not to reappear that evening. While I waited another muskrat appeared, swam to a raft of floating cattail stems and began eating –

It ate a bit, then swam over to a fallen tree and climbed up on a limb –

The muskrat disappeared into the water as a noisy pair of Canada geese flew over –

As the sun set at the end of a great evening it was time to leave and let the beavers do what beavers do and the muskrats do muskrat things.