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| Beaver Dam North |
The Vermilon River with its meandering course is a natural beaver habitat. Aboriginals call beaver the sacred centre of the land, because they steward the water, all wildlife is so dependent on. Currently wetlands created by beaver support almost half of the endangered species in NA.
Beaver were in many ways responsible for opening up NA to Europeans. They were eager to trap them for their fur to feed a trade that was fashion oriented. Scientists today estimate that only about ten percent of the original beaver population survives.
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| Beaver Dam in Front Of Above Photo. |
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| Beaver Lodge |
The top two photos indicate how intricate and extensive their engineering is.
The dam floods the valley making it possible to have underwater entrances to the lodge. The lodge has two rooms a drying room and a living room. This particular beaver pond the size of a small lake supports two lodges. The beaver then construct a work highway along the shore to facilitate movement of material. I said last year in a post that I suspected I was on the wrong side as I never saw any beaver and that I was going to hike,despite the distance,to the other side this year. The dam shown below holds the whole pond together.
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| East Track Beaver Pond. |
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| Beaver Dam |
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| Vermilon Wetland Beaver Dam. |
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| Beaver Lodge Vermilon River Wetland. |
Beaver are monogamous and kits remain with them only to help raise next years kits and then move on. Studies have indicated that they have cognitive ability, and learn quickly.
Well I finally got lucky and found some beaver. And here they are. By the way you tell a beaver from a muskrat by the tail. The beaver's is flat and smacked on the water to indicate danger.
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| Swimming Beaver. |
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| Close Up. |
I'm not sure why this guy let me so close, perhaps he felt sorry for my frequent efforts to get photos, but he actually swam my way. There is a mining road in front of the pond and perhaps the noise of ore trucks covered up my noise.
Click To Enlarge Photos.
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| Front View. |
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| Side View. |
Beaver's have bigger noses than Boomer does.
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| Full View. |
This is a shot of him on land. The facts are from http://www.beaversww.org/beavers-and-wetlands/about-beavers/ and Wikipedia.
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| White-throated Sparrow. |
Since this is a bird site here is my token bird. She accompanied me on my flower hike the other day.
A Post to WBW @ http://pineriverreview.blogspot.com/
