Beaver lodge
Dec. 18th, 2003 07:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaneramosNot long ago I commented to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
twillhead that although I have seen beavers along the Eramosa River, I have never seen a lodge. Days later I spotted one on the far side of the river, but I didn't manage to walk around to take pictures until this morning. I had to walk up to Victoria Road bridge then backtrack downstream. This walk is always worthwhile. The land slopes steeply uphill on the south side, and the river has cut a limestone cliff about 10 metres high. It faces north and never receives any direct sunlight except for a few days in midsummer. Ferns grow on the surface, but in winter it is bare.
Near the bottom of the photo you can see two tiny red arrows. A third one was situated an equal distance to the right. I guess someone from the university is conducting geological research here. I wonder what.
This same limestone underlies most of Southern Ontario. Similar strata can be seen along the Niagara Escarpment, over which the Falls fall. Around Guelph, where the land is gently rolling, I was suprised to find such a cliff. I had lived in this city for 16 years without knowing about it. It is hidden by a dense maple woods growing alongside the riverbed and ascending the slope above. This green belt offers a wonderful, quiet trail for walking and cycling. It is several hundred metres wide in places, bounded by a golf course on the uphill side.
I followed the trail for a little way before turning toward the spot where I had seen the lodge. At that point the floodplain widens, so I had to poke through undergrowth for a hundred metres or so. The first sign I saw of beaver activity was this sculpted stump. Beavers are hard workers, but they must have a sense of humour. I christened this the Alien Beaver Baby.
This stump had been gnawed a long time ago, however I didn't have far to go to find the lodge.
This isn't a big one. It barely comes up to my knees. It isn't the classic rounded dome, in fact it barely looks like a beaver lodge, but many of the sticks show telltale gnaw marks. Some do not; presumably the beaver doesn't turn up its nose at free building material drifting downstream. I couldn't tell at first whether the lodge was occupied, but a platform of branches (visible to the left in the picture below) extended from the main mound into the river. Some of these had been recently cut. Apparently a beaver occupies the lodge this winter. The entrance must lie somewhere under the platform, with the living cavity inside the dome onshore. The whole structure is about three metres wide, 12 metres long and less than a metre high (a metre is slightly longer than a yard).
There are no dams on the Eramosa or Speed River. If a beaver tried to build one, the city or Conservation Authority would destroy it because it hinders flood management. Anyway a dam is not necessary because the Conservation Authority keeps the Eramosa at a fairly steady level all year, and it is deep enough for a beaver to do what a beaver needs to do. That is the reason beavers build dams, to keep the river deep enough for them to live in.
On February 1 I plan to post an article in my Ecology topic at Suite101 about beavers and why they are considered ecosystem engineers.
twillhead that although I have seen beavers along the Eramosa River, I have never seen a lodge. Days later I spotted one on the far side of the river, but I didn't manage to walk around to take pictures until this morning. I had to walk up to Victoria Road bridge then backtrack downstream. This walk is always worthwhile. The land slopes steeply uphill on the south side, and the river has cut a limestone cliff about 10 metres high. It faces north and never receives any direct sunlight except for a few days in midsummer. Ferns grow on the surface, but in winter it is bare.Near the bottom of the photo you can see two tiny red arrows. A third one was situated an equal distance to the right. I guess someone from the university is conducting geological research here. I wonder what.
This same limestone underlies most of Southern Ontario. Similar strata can be seen along the Niagara Escarpment, over which the Falls fall. Around Guelph, where the land is gently rolling, I was suprised to find such a cliff. I had lived in this city for 16 years without knowing about it. It is hidden by a dense maple woods growing alongside the riverbed and ascending the slope above. This green belt offers a wonderful, quiet trail for walking and cycling. It is several hundred metres wide in places, bounded by a golf course on the uphill side.
I followed the trail for a little way before turning toward the spot where I had seen the lodge. At that point the floodplain widens, so I had to poke through undergrowth for a hundred metres or so. The first sign I saw of beaver activity was this sculpted stump. Beavers are hard workers, but they must have a sense of humour. I christened this the Alien Beaver Baby.
This stump had been gnawed a long time ago, however I didn't have far to go to find the lodge.
This isn't a big one. It barely comes up to my knees. It isn't the classic rounded dome, in fact it barely looks like a beaver lodge, but many of the sticks show telltale gnaw marks. Some do not; presumably the beaver doesn't turn up its nose at free building material drifting downstream. I couldn't tell at first whether the lodge was occupied, but a platform of branches (visible to the left in the picture below) extended from the main mound into the river. Some of these had been recently cut. Apparently a beaver occupies the lodge this winter. The entrance must lie somewhere under the platform, with the living cavity inside the dome onshore. The whole structure is about three metres wide, 12 metres long and less than a metre high (a metre is slightly longer than a yard).
There are no dams on the Eramosa or Speed River. If a beaver tried to build one, the city or Conservation Authority would destroy it because it hinders flood management. Anyway a dam is not necessary because the Conservation Authority keeps the Eramosa at a fairly steady level all year, and it is deep enough for a beaver to do what a beaver needs to do. That is the reason beavers build dams, to keep the river deep enough for them to live in.
On February 1 I plan to post an article in my Ecology topic at Suite101 about beavers and why they are considered ecosystem engineers.
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no subject
Date: 2003-12-19 05:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-18 07:06 pm (UTC)And at first glance those red arrows look like Pink Triangles.
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Date: 2003-12-19 05:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-18 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-19 05:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-18 07:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-19 05:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-18 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-19 05:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-19 06:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-19 07:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-19 04:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-19 07:23 am (UTC)it's 8:24 AM here and 47° F. just
looking at them makes me cold.~paul
no subject
Date: 2003-12-19 07:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-19 08:29 am (UTC)has risen 10° already.~paul