Beavering tips
This evening I thought I'd pop to the river and see what I could see. It was a beautiful evening but blooming chilly with a northerly wind ripping right through me. As I was sitting by the river it dawned on me that though some beaver signs are really obvious........
....others can be a bit more subtle though still apparent if you take the time and look.
Below is a well used feeding station. Note the chewed sticks on the banking and in the water. The beaver often leaves a stick or two that is either eaten by one of its family or returned to as it's breakfast at a later date.
Other more subtle evidence is castor mounds. This is where the animal piles up bits of mud/sand and passes over it with it's anal and castor glands giving a quite lovely aroma that is unique to every individual beaver. This marks the beavers territory and wards off any other beaver that is not part of the immediate family and possibly deters predators. The following picture shows a typical castor mound. If you look closely on the right hand side you can see prints of the large webbed rear feet and in the centre you can see where it has trailed it's big doup (bum), and slightly to the left of that, the actual castor mound.
It was while I was photographing this that I noticed tell tale ripples emerging from the bank not far from me. I sneaked a bit closer, keeping my profile below the visible horizon and was treated to this animal having a munch on the bark of a stick. Something to note here and as you will see, the beavers "only" eat the bark. The rest of the wood is either used in lodge making, maintenance and building of dams or just discarded. This wood regardless of it's use is food for invertebrates, particularly beetles and the like that love decaying wood. This brings in more predators such as amphibians, birds, fish etc; and in turn top line predators such as Heron, buzzards, Kingfishers, otters, Osprey etc. Below is a series of pictures that show the beaver chewing away on the wee branch. You will note how he only takes the bark and turns the twig round and round, quite nimble and dainty for such a big animal.
The following video probably shows it off a bit better. Apologies for poor video quality, Gordon Buchanan was in a wee bit of a strop cos I got closer to a beaver than him and Coxy, so he took the huff tonight and farted about with the auto-focus, lovely lad but a right diva!!!
I watched him, the beaver not Gordon (he went home), for a bit then he swam out into the river and dived. I've not a Scooby where he went to be honest. Believe it or not, beavers can hold their breath underwater for 15-20 mins if they need to. This doesn't help if you are trying to track or follow them.
Anyway, I decided to head home before the light faded and try and get a picture of this recently chewed tree and the beavers upcoming next delicacy, wild garlic in the background.
As I was happy snapping away at the tree, I didn't realise there was a beaver on the bank beside me, a massive rumble of twigs, branches and the like, splash into the water and to add insult to injury, a wee swim up the river and a tailsplash! I don't like upsetting them or disturbing them but hand on heart, I didn't see the little beggar. Still, a lovely but brief visit to the river, love it
