It is not an easy winter for the beaver that
lives at the last of a string of little ponds nearby. Shortly
after his pond froze over in early December, a part of the dam
gave way. The water dropped three feet. His house seems to be
OK, although it may be colder than he'd planned. But there is
no sign of a feed bed. Normally, beavers will gather lots of
poplar, birch and maple in autumn, and weave it into a tangle
of sticks in front of their house. This food remains available
all winter, under a couple of feet of ice. So what happened to
this little guy?
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VIKI MATHER |
For most of the winter, a hole in the ice has
remained open where the water leaves the dam. The beaver used
this hole regularly through the early part of winter to go out
to get food. Each time I skied by, there were fresh beaver
tracks crossing my old tracks. Up the hill he went, in search
of dinner. Or maybe breakfast.
During a couple of weeks in late January,
there was no activity at all. It seemed the hole had frozen
over. Just a few twigs rose above the ice and snow to show
where the hole had been. I wondered how the beaver was doing
under there. Had he brought in enough food to get through
several
more weeks if winter?
A few days ago, I was once again skiing by
the little creek that flows from the pond. As I approached the
spot where our trails had crossed, I wondered if the recent
warm weather had brought him out from under the ice
again?
Indeed it had. There had been fresh snow
since the last time I skied by, and I stood there for a few
moments looking at the new beaver tracks. It looked as though
he had been out that morning. While I contemplated this, I
heard a thumping sound coming from up the hill, just where the
beaver's trail
climbed. In a moment, I saw one fat little
beaver whomping his way down the path as fast as his short
little legs could carry him.
I slid my skis back a foot, so he wouldn't
have to cross over the tips to get back to his hole. Thump,
thump, thump. One very surprised beaver never even looked back
at me as he dove back under the ice.
I figured he'd had enough of a fright that he
would not likely be out again any time soon. I took off my
skis, and followed his well-packed trial up the steep hill.
There wasn't much in the way of favourite beaver nibbling trees
nearby. The trail wound a great distance away from the
pond.
I found a few small red maple stumps. There
was a birch that had been cut, but hung up in a spruce tree.
There was not much else of interest to the beaver until he went
another 50 feet to a small grove of scraggly birches.
On my way back down the hill, I picked up a
12-foot long cut maple sapling, and dragged it along. It was
far easier for me to do this than a twenty
pound beaver could. I lifted it over the logs
of two long-ago fallen spruce trees. Once I got back to the
pond, I left the maple on the ice near the hole. I hope it
helps a bit. After all, winter is not a safe time for beavers
to be trotting about on the land.
Viki Mather lives by a lake near Sudbury.
