Beavering 19th March

I love taking my tours but what is possibly even better is delivering a tour to people that have been before. It's always great to catch up and I did so this evening with Dawn. Her and her husband are up from Helensburgh area and I took them on a successful tour to the river last year. As Bill was watching the rugby (thankfully I missed it) it was just Dawn and I that ventured forth on a lovely early spring evening.

I can see almost on a daily basis the new growth in the fields and the wild garlic starting to peek out from their winter slumber. The aroma by the river is starting to be pretty much a Count Dracula no-go area due to either the afore mentioned garlic or the precise gnawing of the trees into stakes.

We arrived at the river around 1745 and had a wee walk up and down the river to see if we could see any otters, no joy unfotunately. In fact the river was quiet yet again with just a few birds entering their evensong and the obvious and sometimes grating clucking of the blackbird.

We eventually sat down around 1820, and there were a few ripples from a couple of burrows but nothing definite to say for certain it was a beaver. As we sat, around 1837, I spotted a wee trail of bubbles heading straight towards us and pointed it out to Dawn. And as if by magic, one of last years kits popped up in front of us. It's still relatively small even though the photo doesn't portray that.

It slipped back under the water just as easily as it had appeared, effortlessly and with grace. We sat for a wee bit longer and we both noticed ripples and quiet splashings were coming from a burrow just below and to the right of us. However nothing came of it but it was more than likely another/same beaver. So we headed home still pleasded we had a wee sighting, albeit brief.