Our weekly recon in the backwoods yesterday discovered a rather large tree was taken down by the beavers at dam Echo (named for the snow machine trail bridge that has been submerged by the dam: the fifth bridge from the spot on Woodbury pond where the trail starts). The dam is looking as substantial as can be imagined (See last image below). We have not seen any evidence that anyone has been attempting to remove it or at least lower the water level so that bridge Echo is useable.
The tree is probably a foot in diameter! I have a shot from a couple weeks ago showing it standing; I cannot imagine why they need such a large piece of lumber. I have not seen any evidence of a beaver lodge yet and this is surprising since we are probably less than a month from some good snow and true winter. The dam’s purpose is to create the conditions for the lodge where they will spend the winter. Our future patrols will be focused on finding where they will build it.
Not long after setting up a new trail camera in the backyard woods, we captured this image. We are about one week to go to the start of the 2018 deer hunting (with rifles) season. We have not seen any hunters hanging around the neighborhood so far – this does happen in some years. Generally we see, at the very least, our southern neighbor’s kid wandering around. Perhaps during this week there will be some.