Tag Archives: pond life

Beaver Patrol

Not one…

Not two…

But three…

Beavers patrolling The Pond. The birch, aspen and cottonwoods are all targets.

There has not been any action from the beavers since early spring. Once we made it into late September, and had the first hard freeze, they shifted into that busy beaver mode. It’s been nonstop action, day and night, collecting their favorite trees for the pantry, ever since. They already have a decent pile of semi-submerged tree limbs in front of their lodge.

They are a fascinating rodent, but if you want to save a nice birch from their teeth, you need to be proactive. My “yard” has a fence around it, but they still manage to break through from time to time. The neighbor though, offers them an easy smorgasbord, so for the most part, they seem to take the path of least resistance. In one night, three beavers dropped a dozen trees and waddled off with roughly half of their lumber in that raid. The next night, they came back for the other half, logs and all.

This will continue until The Pond finally freezes over. It’s a rough six weeks of the year for a birch.


The Back Yard

The swans are back in town

A pair of swans, who had been spending the summer on the Back Pond, recently moved up to The Pond. I was watching them one evening, when a second pair of swans crashed the party, and chaos ensued. The original pair did not take kindly to sharing The Pond. For an hour the original pair chased the interlopers across the usual still waters. I was stacking firewood, and I’d hear the Flap,Flap,Flap… of wings beating the water as they skimmed across from end to end. Pretty fascinating to watch, although I’m convinced the beaver just wanted the peace & quiet back.

When I took the video, things had calmed down some, but you can see one of the interlopers off to the side, testing the waters, as it were. Eventually, that lone swan crossed the red line, and chaos ensued once more. It was getting dark when the four swans finally paired off at opposite ends of The Pond.


The Beaver Cam

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I recently pulled the SD card from the trail camera that I have looking out over the beaver lodge.  It had 747 images on it.

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741 of the images were of ducks.  Sometimes in pairs, sometimes solo, sometimes the ducks had a large party and ignored all social distancing.  I have ducks swimming, ducks scratching an itch (like above), ducks taking off in flight, and ducks preening for the camera.

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There are four images that contain at least one duck and one beaver.  The beavers are quite active, but have not been overwhelmed by the urge to cut down any trees.  They seem to continue to eat on the supply they cut down late last summer and early autumn.

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There are only two images of a beaver without the photobombing ducks.  Personally, I think the Beaver Cam has gone to the beavers’ heads.  Now they just slap their tail in order to get attention.  Once you start to ignore their swimming about, the aggrieved beaver fires off a tail slap.  Who knew beavers to be such prima donnas?

The big male seems to have grown quite a bit since he last showed himself.  The female remains in shape; she’s quite svelte in appearance.  There is at least one kit, that I have seen.  There certainly could be two, but only one has shown itself at a time.


Methane Pocket

Walking blindly across ponds in the Interior of Alaska can lead to wet feet, and sometimes much worse.

Methane being released from the pond bottom, causes the ice to thin directly above the pocket of methane. With no snow to speak of right now, the pockets are easy to find. This one has caused a perfect hole to form in the ice.


The definition of bad timing