Busy Little Beavers

Have you ever watched beavers at work? I had never seen beavers in the wild prior to this past summer, much less see them build a dam.

On this occasion, I spent two late afternoons, photographing and watching a family of three, mom, dad and youngster, rebuild their dam after their original dam was bulldozed because it had flooded over the road.

It was so interesting, my presence didn’t seem to bother them so I was able to photograph them for quite awhile. They would dive under water, scoop up mud from the bottom of the pond and then pack it between the branches and logs they had already placed to build up the dam. They would then swim to the opposite side of the pond and waddle off into the trees where you could hear some thrashing and see saplings fall over. Then they would drag the saplings in their mouth and swim to the dam. They did this over and over.

I found it quite amusing to watch the female as she would redo or fix what the male did. It was quite funny. He would bring in branches and stack them on the dam and then pack it in with mud. Then she would swim over and move it around and adjust until it was just so.

Another interesting tidbit is that their teeth are orange, this is from the iron in their tooth enamel. This makes the teeth stronger from gnawing on all that wood and other stressors.

Enjoy the pictures! I was fortunate to get some good close ups!

Working for a Living

Collecting Building Materials

Needs some Green

Break Time

Foraging

Surveying the Dam

Business as Usual

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12 thoughts on “Busy Little Beavers”

I’ve never seen them actually building one. Great captures 👏👏👏. I would have filled up all my memory cards…immediately 😂😂

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Angela Moyer on December 4, 2020 at 1:36 pm said:

Thank you! It was awesome to watch them at work and I did fill my cards….over 3000 images! 🤣🤣😂😁 it was quite the project to sort through them all!

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Nice collection of beaver actions shots, Angela! All good looks but “Break Time” is my favorite.

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Angela Moyer on December 4, 2020 at 9:05 pm said:

Thanks! Break time is one of mine as well….glad you enjoyed the collection!

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Fantastic captures, Angel’s ! What a fun experience to see the Beaver at work and get to photograph. Their abilities and determination are no match for that bulldozer.

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Angela Moyer on December 6, 2020 at 7:51 pm said:

Thanks! It was a great experience!

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These images are fantastic Angela! What an encounter, and a close one at that. The nugget of information about why there teeth are orange was particularly interesting. We’ve been finding signs of beavers all over but no sign of them yet. Wonderful photos, as usual!

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Angela Moyer on December 11, 2020 at 7:54 am said:

Thanks so much, Keith! I hope you get your close encounter with the beavers too! Merry Christmas!

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