Counting invisible beavers

In December, in deep snow, I stood on a bridge crossing the Quinsam River, and took photos of beaver tracks. I decided I would go back in the summer to look for a beaver lodge. Well, summer's still a way off, but I'm glad I went back now, while the trees and understory are just bare twigs.

I found a small mound that will be hidden again once the salmonberries that top it leaf out, right where the tracks had entered a hole beside the bank. Is it a lodge?

A small lodge. Or is it that the water's high?

As seen in December. With beaver tracks.

I walked to the far end of the bridge and looked down. Yes, the beavers have been here, and have been busy. No wonder the water looked high!

Dam loaded with fresh sticks.

The road skirts Echo Lake and a couple of smaller lakes, then finds and crosses the Quinsam River, veers off southeast while the river twists and turns, snaking (a very curvy snake) its way north to join the Campbell River. I followed the road, looking for skunk cabbages. On either side much of the forest, where the land is flat, was underwater. Trees stand with their feet in the water; many have died and stand, shedding crumbling bark. Looks like beaver country, with every little creek dammed.

I started wondering; how many beavers live in an area like this? How many does it support? Back home, I looked it up. A beaver lodge, with its 2 to 10 beavers, claims one to three kms. of creek or shore.  (Beaver: BC gov. publication)This area, (the road crossing it covers 11 km.) with many creeks, all tied in knots, probably can house several colonies.

Beaver country. From the second bridge, crossing a creek, not the Quinsam River.

Another BC government document, this one from 1979, estimates the number of beavers on Vancouver Island at 12 to 18 thousand, which would work out at 1.7 beavers per square km. of the island or one average colony per 3 sq. kms. (The island covers 31,285 sq. km.). 

That was a while ago, and much of the island has been logged off since then, so the numbers will be less. Or maybe not; what's gone is the evergreen cover, and the alders, prime beaver food, have spread out. A NatureServeExplorer page gives an estimate of a short-term increase rate at >10%.

And I still haven't seen even one beaver!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

En diciembre del año pasado, cuando la nieve cubría todo, me detuve en un puente que cruza el rio Quinsam, sacando fotos de huellas de castor. Decidí regresar en el verano para buscar la madriguera. Por suerte, fui ahora, cuando los arbustos y árboles desnudos no la esconden.

Encontré un montecito, abierto a la vista ahora, lo que no va a estar una vez que los arbustos de salmonberry se cubran de hojas.

Foto: El montecito, bajo un tronco, visto desde el puente. ¿Será la madriguera?

Foto #2: Lo que vi en diciembre. El mismo sitio, con huellas de castor.

Foto #3: Crucé al otro lado del puente y miré para abajo. Hay una presa, cubierta de palos nuevos. Sí, los castores han estado aquí y bastante activos, además. Con razón el rio me parecía más ancho.

El camino bordea el lago Echo y un par de lagunas, luego cruza el rio Quinsam, y se dobla hacia el sudeste mientras que el rio se retuerce y se enrosca, llegando últimamente a verterse en el rio Campbell. Yo seguí por el camino, buscando linternas de pantano. De ambos lados del camino, donde el terreno es plano, mucho del bosque estaba inundado. Los árboles tienen las raices en el agua; muchos han muerto y se quedan parados, mientras su corteza se desbarata lentamente. Parece terreno favorito de castores, con cada pequeño riachuelo bloqueado por sus presas.

Me puse a pensar: ¿Cuántos castores viven en un area como esta? ¿Cuántos puede sostener? Ya en casa, busqué la respuesta. Una madriguera, con sus habitantes, de 2 a 10, se consideran dueños de 1 a 3 kilómetros cuadrados de margen del rio o laguna. (Según este documento del gobierno de BC) Esta area, — el camino que la cruza mide 11 km. — con muchos riachuelos, todos enmarañados, probablemente puede sostener varias colonias.

Foto #4: Terreno ideal para castores. Desde el puente que cruza otro riachuelo.

Otro documento del gobierno, este fechado en 1979, calcula el número de castores en la isla de Vancouver en de 12 a 18 mil, lo que resultaría en 1.7 castores por cada km², o una colonia promedio en cada 3 km². (La isla cubre 321.285 km².)

Eso hace algún tiempo, y desde entonces han talado muchos de nuestros bosques, así que los números podrían ser menos. O tal vez no: lo que se ha perdido son los árboles de hoja perenne, y los alisos, que son buena comida para los castores, han multiplicado. Una página de NatureServeExplorer calcula el aumento en plazo corto de más de 10%.

¡Y sigo sin ver ni un solo castorcito!

Igloo in the wild

One of these days ... I'm always hoping to see one of the beavers that live in a beaver lodge I've been visiting for 6 years, summer and winter and in between. And I've never seen a beaver there. Tracks, yes.

The beaver lodge, today, under snow.

Do you see it? The mound at the edge of the pond, with a couple of sticks pointing to the right. Snow makes an excellent camouflage.

Snow is also a good blanket, keeping the heat in. It's warm inside that lodge; the entrances are underwater, so no drafts get in, and the beavers' body heat is enough to warm the whole place.

On the far side of the pond there's a larder of sorts; cattails and alder branches. They eat the roots of the cattails and the bark off the branches. And there, I saw tracks.

Cattails and beaver markings.

The snow lay undisturbed on top of the ice everywhere else, but here among the cattails, something has been busy. The long tracks are probably left by dragging beaver tails. In two spots, I could see the marks of individual paws.

The messy snow at the bottom of the photo is from another winter visitor; the highway snow plows. I did see these. One day, one day I hope, a beaver.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Un dia de estos. Un dia, será. Pero hoy no. Siempre espero ver un castor cuando visito su madriguera. Estoy allí varias veces al año desde hace 6 años. Y nunca he visto ni un castorcito, Las huellas, sí.

Foto #1; la madriguera bajo nieve. ¿La ves? Un montecito a la orilla de la laguna. La nieve sirve muy bien de camuflaje.

La nieve también ayuda a mantener la madriguera a una temperatura cómoda, actuando como una cobija. Las entradas a la madriguera están debajo de la superficie del agua, así que no les llega ni un soplo de viento en el interior, y el calor de los cuerpos de los castores residentes es suficiente para calentar el espacio.

Al lado opuesto de la laguna hay un abasto de comestibles estilo castor; un totoral rodeado de alisos. Los castores comen las raices de las totoras y la corteza de los alisos. Y allí vi huellas de castor.

foto #2: Totoral bajo la nieve. La laguna está cubierta de hielo con unos cuantos centímetros de nieve encima. En toda la laguna, esta nieve está sin manchas; nieve virgen. Solamente en este sitio estaba revuelta. Se ven las marcas donde arrastraban sus colas grandes; también vi dos marcas de patas.

La nieve revuelta en la parte inferior de la foto fue hecha por otro visitante invernal: el quitanieves que mantiene la carretera abierta. De estos, vi dos. De los castores, ninguno.

Un dia será. Eso espero.

View from the bridge

The Quinsam River is a small river, little more than a creek in places, and about 35 km. long. It winds and loops its way down to meet the Campbell River just upstream of the estuary. The road I was following crossed it on a small bridge about halfway along its length. I found a place to park and walked back.

A quiet, shallow waterway.

A closer look. There's ice along the edges, coated with a thin layer of snow.

As usual, I find once I've come home, that I missed something right in front of me. Do you see it here?

Look at the ice.

Zooming in:

Do you see the tracks? The maker came out of the hole on the left, walked on ice and snow to the hole on the right. And I never saw him!

I'll zoom in some more:

What animal was this?

I can't decide, looking at the tracks, whether he was dragging a tail or not. Was it a beaver? Is there a lodge under that snow load?

This was well out of town, some 4 or 5 kilometres from the closest house, and in prime beaver country; many small streams, little lagoons, lots of red alder for munchies and construction work. But was he dragging a tail or not?

I'll go back in the summer to look for a lodge.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

El rio Quinsam es un rio pequeño, apenas un riachuelo en algunos sitios, y dando vueltas y haciendo círculos, baja desde el laguito Quinsam a unirse con el rio Campbell cerca del estuario, unos 35 kilómetros, contando todas las vueltas que hace. El camino que yo seguía cruza el rio más o menos a la mitad de su recorrido. Busqué un sitio para estacionarme y regresé a pie.

Fotos:

1. Un rio tranquilo, poco hondo.
2. Visto más de cerca. A las orillas, hay hielo cubierto de un poco de nieve.
3. Y como de costumbre, llego a casa y me doy cuenta al ver las fotos, de que algo se me escapó. ¿Lo ves? Mira el hielo.
4. Haciendo zoom. Las huellas salen de una apertura entre la hierba, cruzan hielo y nieve para desaparecer adentro de otra entrada. ¡Y yo, que ni lo vi!
5. Cortando la foto aun más. ¿Serán huellas de un castor?

No puedo decidir, viendo las huellas, si el animal arrastraba tras sí una cola. Si era un castor, tendría una cola pesada. ¿Habrá una madriguera debajos de la nieve?

Esto está fuera del pueblo, como a unos 4 o 5 km. de la habitación humana más cercana. Y es terreno ideal para los castores, con muchos riachuelos y lagunitas, muchos alisos rojos para comer y para las obras de construcción. Pero, ¿arrastraba la cola? ¿Sí, o no?

Voy a regresar en el verano para buscar la madriguera.

End of the lake

The view from the south end of Buttle Lake; here's where it starts, with the water flowing downstream to the north.

Looking north. Shallow water, muddy flats. Beaver habitat?

Sign beside the bridge.

The sign reads: Oasis in the Forest

The steep terrain and dense forests of Vancouver Island are not well suited to beavers, yet small numbers are usually found in each watershed. Here in the Thelwood Valley, beaver dams have created a shrubby marshland and snag habitat, an oasis to many birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians.

The ponds are excellent rearing areas for cut-throat trout, Pacific treefrogs and salamanders.  Fruits of the red-osier dogwood and Pacific crabapple feed common flickers, robins, varied and hermit thrush. Yellow warblers, yellowthroat, and song sparrows nest among the willow tangles. Overhead, flycatchers, swallows and occasionally swifts, hawk insects.

If not for the beaver, these and many other animals would find survival in the valley much more difficult.

Thelwood Creek, flowing into the lake, seen from the bridge.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Esta es la vista desde el extremo del lago Buttle, donde empieza el lago; desde aquí el agua fluye hacia el norte.

El letrero que se halla al lado del puente lee:

El terreno empinado y los bosques tupidos no son el habitat ideal para los castores, pero algunos se encuentran en cada cuenca. Aquí en el valle Thelwood, las presas de castor han creado un pantanal lleno de arbustos de árboles muertos, que es un oasis para muchos pájaros, mamíferos, reptiles y anfibios.

Las lagunas son areas donde truchas, ranas arbóreas y salamandras pueden reproducirse. Las frutas de Cornus sericea y de Malus fusca proveen alimento para gran variedad de pájaros, que construyen sus nidos entre los arbustos y cazan insectos en el aire.

Si no fuera por el castor, estos y muchos otros animales hallarían la vida en el valle mucho más difícil.

La tercera foto es del riachuelo Thelwood, desde el otro lado del puente. Este riachuelo alimenta el lago.

Waterfront home

The old beaver lodge. Where last summer I struggled to find safe footing among the ferns, now before the spring growth starts, it was an easy walk. I tiptoed up to within about 4 metres from the back door; no more, not wanting to startle the beavers.

Snug

I saw no beavers, but there were many alder branches with tooth marks on the path across the lagoon. The red inner bark is their favourite food.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

La vieja madriguera de los castores. El año pasado, apenas pude acercarme por los arbustos y helechos, ahora fue un camino fácil. Me acerqué cautelosamente hasta unos 4 metros; no más, para no espantar a la familia de castores.

No vi ningún castor, pero alrededor había muchos palos de aliso con marcas de sus dientes. La corteza interior del aliso rojo (y la corteza es un rojo fuerte) es la comida favorita de los castores.

More beaver lore

When my granddaughter was little, I took her places; to the parks, on gentle hikes, sometimes up steepish hills. She ran ahead, and I followed as quickly as I could. Sometimes, I had to rescue her; not often.

These days, when she visits, I take her to my favourite places, sometimes up and down steep hills. And she still runs ahead. And I still follow her, but slowly, cautiously. She hasn't had to rescue me yet, though.

I took her to see the beaver pond.

The beaver lodge, as I have always seen it, from the side of the highway.

We went down the back trail, to look at the pond from the other side.

The water lilies are almost all dried and brown now. Good beaver food.

On the way back, she headed off, straight through the bush where I had sort of wished I dared go, to see the beaver lodge from the back side. I followed her, one careful step at a time until I reached her, standing on a rise, looking down on the lodge.

The lodge, from the back side. The beavers have made a sort of trail over the muddy back end.

After that, we had to hike up the road and scramble through the bush to the other end of the pond, to get another view. I didn't make it down the last hill, and looked for mushrooms while she took water-level photos. On the way back, we passed a gap in the trees that gave us a glimpse of a muddy bank. And it was full of beaver tracks!

Beaver tracks, going and coming. The heavy tail blurs many of the tracks as the beaver walks, but there are a few, in the left angle of the X of branches, that show the five strong toes. It looks like the beaver's trail heads into the bush just behind them.

The beaver's front paws are smaller, the rear ones are as big as my hands. The hind toes are webbed, but not the front ones.

Since beavers live near water, their tracks are often found in mud, which gives good detail to the prints. Beaver tracks show webbing on the hind feet. Hind tracks can easily be six to seven inches long. All feet have five toes. The prints show five toes on the hind feet and four toes on the front feet. The fifth front toe sometimes registers, but not on all surfaces. Front tracks can be two to three inches long. Claw marks show in the tracks. Beavers walk plantigrade, or flat-footed. The large tail sometimes leaves a drag mark in the trail. (https://www.bear-tracker.com/beaver.html)

Reading up on beavers, trying to confirm that these were, in fact, beaver tracks (but what else could they be, behind a beaver lodge?) I learned of a couple more features that I should be able to find in the area: scat, sometimes deposited on the edge of the pond, and scent mounds.

Beavers establish scent posts near their ponds. These are composed of a mound of mud, grass and sticks piled up into a dome-shaped mass. The beaver rubs castoreum on the mound. Some of these mounds can be huge, measuring a foot tall and three feet across.(Bear Tracker)

I think I know where to look for these. A project for next summer!

And I still haven't seen hide nor hair of a beaver here!

The lodge in summer

The beaver lodge, that is.

Last March, I posted a photo of a beaver lodge I'd found near Echo Lake. I passed that way again today, and stopped to see how the family is doing. They've been working hard; the lodge is higher and wider and has new landscaping.

The lodge in its mini-lake. The pale yellowish flat area in back is all waterlilies.

Another view, from closer in. They've even got window boxes with plants!

For comparison: the lodge as it was 4 months ago.

Pond lily leaves and Floating-leaved pondweed.

Beavers are well-known for eating trees, both the wood and the juicy inner bark. But they vary their diet according to the season. In winter, it's trees. In the spring, they turn to newly-sprouting shrubs, and by summer, they're eating mainly soft vegetation. These pond lilies and the pondweed are a major part of their summer menu.

The Beaver Wars: round ten to the beavers

It's a long story, going back to 2008. (Previous posts: May, 2009; November, 2011; January, 2012; March, 2012; November, 2012.)

History to date:

We first saw signs of the Cougar Creek Park beavers in 2008. They were colonizing the newly-landscaped lagoons, and had dammed the lower creek outlet. The next year, they had dammed the inlet as well, creating a small pool on the upper level.

The city (Surrey) has objected; this was not in the official plans. So they've fenced and wired the trees, sometimes reinforcing them with wired-on chunks of wood. They've removed the dams, they've caught and killed a male, they've cleared trees off the banks, completely removing a shady stand of evergreens; the resulting erosion has turned the upper end of the original pond into a muddy slough.

The beavers shrugged off their losses and went back to work.

By November of 2012, the family had succeeded in damming the upper creek, filling in what had been a wasteland with a slow, muddy trickle down the centre. It made a pretty duck pond, striped with reflections from the alders around it, over patterns of green and gold animated by swimming, dabbling ducks.

Map of ponds, November 2011, with the dammed upper creek marked in blue. The pond now extends to the bridge at the far right.

In January, 2012, the dams and the new pond were gone. By that March, the three dams were back; the upper pond was filling again. Mallards, wigeons and mergansers were busy in the new feeding ground; as usual, a heron was hunting along the edges.

I took my grandson down to the park to show him the beaver dams in September of that year. We were disappointed; not only had the city removed all the dams, but they had gone into the wasteland with machinery and scraped off much of the vegetation, leaving an oozing, muddy mess, scattered with garbage. (So much for the much-advertised "Releafing Project".) A lonely pair of ducks patrolled the lower lagoon; nothing else, not even the heron.

We went back last November. (I calculated this as Round 8.) Now there were three good dams, and a lodge. The upper pond covered the machine scar nicely, and they'd built another dam at the top, making a new, third pond. The ducks were back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2013:

This spring, we found the upper pond area scoured clear again. By summer, there was a start on a new dam, near the bridge. It didn't last; the next time we visited, the creek was trickling over bare mud again. There was no sign of beaver activity anywhere. I wondered if they had finally given up.

The beaver is a stubborn animal.

I took a friend to the park last week to look at ducks. And found the beaver ponds expanded once more, swallowing up most of the space between the schoolyard and the fenced houses on the map above.

The ducks are happy with twice the water to dabble in.

The newest dam, raising the water level a couple of feet. Lots of good-sized lumber in there, probably incorporating trees the city had felled.

This latest project is quite ambitious; the beavers have cut down some large trees, red alder wood for construction, the juicy bark and cambium for food.

Two trees, the smaller one gone to the dam. The other will have to be cut in small chunks if they plan to use it for building.  If not, it has a whole season's worth of groceries under the bark.

Toothmarks in wood, cambium, and grey-green bark.

Part of the new pond.

In earlier episodes, the lodge was usually built in the lower lagoon. (The small, squarish one in the map above.) Here, it was highly visible to anyone walking on the paths, crossing the bridge, or in the back yards of the houses to the south. It never lasted long.

Someone, some beaver, has been thinking. The latest lodge is well hidden.

In the new pond, water has overflowed the previously established banks; much of the "bush" - salmonberry, elder, Indian plum, ferns and the inevitable blackberry canes - has its feet underwater. We walked around from the upper end, as far as we could go without wading. And hidden between trees and bush, we found the lodge.

It's a big lodge, high and long. This was as close as we could get. I think that's cattail growing on the far side; a new addition to the vegetation here.

And I still haven't seen the beavers themselves.

Beavers never give up: Round Eight already

The war between Cougar Creek beavers and householders continues, with the beavers mounting a strong offensive again.

A quick history (links below): I think we first saw them in 2008; at least, those are my first photos of beaver-felled trees. At the time, they were colonizing the newly-landscaped lagoons in Cougar Creek park, and had dammed the outlet of the creek. The next year, they had dammed the inlet, as well, creating a small pool on the upper level.  The city has fenced and wired the trees, sometimes reinforcing them with wired-on chunks of wood. They've removed the dams, they've caught and killed a male, they've cleared trees off the banks, which just exposed the banks to erosion, but didn't deter the beavers.

By last November, the family had succeeded in damming the upper creek, filling in what had been a wasteland with a slow, muddy trickle down the centre. It made a pretty duck pond, striped with reflections from the alders around it, over patterns of green and gold animated by swimming, dabbling ducks.

Map of ponds last November. The newest addition is to the right of the blue area.

This January, the dams and the new pond were gone. We went back in March, and the three dams were back; the upper pond was filling again. Mallards, wigeons and mergansers were busy in the new feeding ground; as usual, a heron was hunting along the edges.

I took my grandson down to the park to show him the beaver dams in September. We were disappointed; not only had people removed all the dams, they had gone into the wasteland with machinery and scraped off all the vegetation, leaving no small wood for beavers to start up with again. (So much for the much-advertised "Releafing Project".) All that was left was bare, oozing mud. A lonely pair of ducks patrolled the lower lagoon; nothing else, not even the heron.

We went back yesterday. Now there are three good dams, and a lodge. The upper pond covers the machine scar nicely, and they've built another dam at the top, making a new, third pond. The ducks are back.

The upper pond, with the re-routed creek coming in at upper right.

Squiggly reflections

The upper lip of the second dam traps fallen leaves.

On the far side of the new duck pond, the latest dam raises the creek to a third level.

The latest tree felled. It has been stripped of small branches for food and construction materials. About a meter along the trunk, the beavers have cut half-way through, to make a sturdy support beam for one of their projects.

Mallards peacefully grooming in the middle pond.

Mallards and reflections.

Persistence pays; it's been a long, slow struggle, but the beavers are advancing. Two steps forward, it is, and one step back. But those steps forward add up.

I've blogged their ongoing story here: March, 2007; May, 2009; November 2011; January, 2012; March, 2012.

Beavers never give up.

Two months ago, I wrote about the ongoing feud between a beaver family and the city of Surrey (three years and more!), over the optimum use of the creek and lagoon. The beavers were winning at the moment; they'd enlarged the upper creek area, turning a muddy trickle into a duck pond. I commented, later, "The strange thing is that in all this time, I have never seen a beaver here. Just the dams and the felled trees."

The battle continues. The human residents have been trying new tactics. Where the beavers cut fresh trees, men went in with chain saws and cleared the banks, opening more land up to the sunlight. And they've removed a couple of dams; the new pond is gone again.

Not that the beavers seem to mind this; they're taking advantage of the newly felled timber to feed on fresh, green inner bark.

Alders are weed trees; they grow quickly in wet land, and the bark of the young tree is tender and juicy.

Beaver-felled alder.

They had cut some of the new timber into shorter lengths, which they can haul away to make new lodges. Quite a few of the branches are already piled in the quieter end of the lagoon, a start on the next community lodge.

And we saw beavers, finally: (Looks like we didn't; that's an otter. I didn't expect that!)

Resting between patches of ice, against reflections of still-standing trees.

There were at least two, probably three, adults, swimming back and forth across the lagoon, ducking under the ice, occasionally coming close to the edge to rest.

The beavers will have to hurry with the building program; it is breeding season now, and a warm nest area will soon be needed. Although their kits from last year will still be with them for another year or so, the next litter will be born around April. The yearlings will help with babysitting, and probably with dam construction.

*Update: Annie, in the comments says he looks more like an otter. He does. This is entirely confusing to me. Can a tiny lagoon in a muddy creek support both otters and beaver? What do you think?

Update #2: Others agree; it's an otter. Post corrected.

Housing project

I've got a lot of catching up to do. This post goes back to November 3, two weeks ago.


For the past three years, I have been watching as a family of beavers fight the city of Surrey. In the spring of 2009, I wrote:

"The Canadian Beaver is Canada’s national symbol. ... (It) is symbolic of independence, creativity, and determination ..." (From ArticleClick.com)

The beavers have plans for this small lake (Cougar Creek Park); they've been building dams and enlarging the waterways since before people decided to turn it into a park. Their ideas conflict with the city's pretty schemes, and the two parties are feuding. The beavers build dams; someone clears away the piles and removes felled trees. The beavers build again. 

The city (Surrey) trapped and killed a male about this time last year; in family-raising time. The female raised her brood, and during the winter, they dammed the creek leading into the pond, widening the creek and gathering enough water to wash away the trash that littered its bed. The dam, and much of the topsoil was stripped away. The beavers felled more trees, and started over. Wire fences went up around the biggest tree trunks. The beavers chopped down a row of new alders and dammed the outlet.

 And here's a photo from January of 2008:

Extending the present lagoon.

They are at it again. They have more or less succeeded at enlarging the lagoon; the mouth of the creek that feeds into it is now a pond. But that wasn't enough for them; there are two families now, and they need more territory, so they have annexed the bush on the far side of the bridge. What was up until now a narrow, sluggish, muddy stream, meandering through the bush and alongside another stretch of lawn, is now a wide, calm pool.

The blue shape shows the area now underwater.

This time, they have a larger construction crew; they have built dams higher than any of their previous attempts, and two at once, each raising the water level behind it about three feet.

One of the dams. A trickle below, going on to fill the next pool, a still pond above.

As the beaver families have gained workers, they have also become more ambitious; the trees they fell these days are much larger than any of the previous year's material.

Mallards rest on a small remaining patch of grass.

Lumberjacks at work. The trees they're cutting now are around 8 to 10 inches at the base.

Smaller alders with their feet and reflections in the new pool

Reflections and fallen leaves on the banks of the creek going under the bridge, swollen as it enters the second new pool.

We talked to a neighbour; he was quite incensed by the "depredations" of the beavers, and hopes that the city will get rid of them. I must admit, my sympathies are with the beavers. After all, our human housing developments are spreading into all the vacant land around the creek, with ever bigger houses, more fences, more streets. Turn about's fair play.

In the last bit of third-growth timber, a stone's throw from the edge of the park, we saw a coyote. A sign at the street, "KEEP OUT", claims this piece for some new housing scheme.

The coyote can't read, so he's not worrying. Yet.

Determined? Persistent? Or just plain stubborn?

Summer has arrived in Cougar Creek Park. The early waterfowl are gone, except for a few mallards, the trees are completely leafed out, and the water is high.

That's the edge of a beaver dam at the bottom of the photo. Laurie climbed under the bridge to look at it from the downstream side:

"The Canadian Beaver is Canada’s national symbol. ... (It) is symbolic of independence, creativity, and determination ..." (From ArticleClick.com)

The beavers have plans for this small lake; they've been building dams and enlarging the waterways since before people decided to turn it into a park. Their ideas conflict with the city's pretty schemes, and the two parties are feuding. The beavers build dams; someone clears away the piles and removes felled trees. The beavers build again.

The city (Surrey) trapped and killed a male about this time last year; in family-raising time. The female raised her brood, and during the winter, they dammed the creek leading into the pond, widening the creek and gathering enough water to wash away the trash that littered its bed. The dam, and much of the topsoil was stripped away. The beavers felled more trees, and started over. Wire fences went up around the biggest tree trunks. The beavers chopped down a row of new alders and dammed the outlet.

Now, someone has devised a new strategy: wire netting, with scrap wood jammed in to give the beavers something to chew on without damaging the tree.

I don't know who will win this argument; neither side seems inclined to compromise. But the lake does look lovely, with the water now covering the muddy banks.

Green, green, and green. Even the duck.

The beavers aren't the only busy ones in the park:

Bee on wild rose.

Very pale, big-eyed bee on white thimbleberry blossoms.

The first salmonberries of the season. Not quite ripe, but tasty enough.

Chickadee hanging upside-down, feeding from the willow catkins.

Cedar waxwing.

The tall evergreens were a-flitter with tiny birds we never got close enough to identify, a robin pair sang in a small cedar, finches and crows kept up a lively conversation. A clump of cattails has taken root along the edge of the beavers' widened creek, yellow irises bloom where the heron fishes, ninebark and Indian plum are flowering.

And on the tame side, a variegated lilac leans over a back fence.


.