In the beginning, leaving trees for the beavers had been an accidental stroke of luck: my husband cut down trees for firewood and left them by a nearby river. When he returned, he found that beavers had stripped off the branches and leaves. Sensing a good thing, he continued to do this from time to time for mutual benefit.

October 6 - 4:45 p.m.

Phwap! From our vantage point on the riverbank, the slap of the beaver’s tail is loud and startling, and then its owner disappears underwater. Before its dramatic exit, the beaver had swum forcefully back and forth several times, close enough so we could see orange-yellow teeth. Earlier, my husband had caught glimpses of two or three kits swimming about. We assumed the tail-slapping beaver was a female.

It has been several years since the last time beavers worked on this part of the river. It has taken at least a dozen years to replace the poplar (pronounced pop’l in northern Grafton County) and other young hardwoods they use as food and building materials.

October 7 - 7:30 p.m.

Returning the next evening we brought along a flashlight. Soon the plunk of a tail resonates across the water. The flashlight scares the beavers, and they don't come to work on shore. Unfortunately, there's no moon, and we can’t see the beavers without light. Quietly, we leave. We have now seen two large beavers, perhaps the parents of the kits observed during the day. We notice that the maple branches left on the bank have been nibbled and stripped of all bark.

October 8 - 4:30 p.m.

Next day, we return at dusk. It still amazes me to see these creatures working. They have stood a few young trees in the river bottom. I suppose they will nibble away at them as winter approaches. When they swim underwater near them, these saplings begin to sway and shake, telling us of the beavers’ whereabouts underwater. Now one beaver sits upright on a nearby sandbar, nibbling on a branch.

The beavers appear larger out of the water. In the stream, they look svelte and graceful; on land, barrel-shaped and lumbering. They are constantly going back and forth to their home, which is probably a tunnel in the bank. They dive under the dam where we can't see them, so this is just supposition on my part.

We've discovered that if we stand perfectly still they don't notice us. Eventually though, I move too quickly, and phwap! they’re gone.

October 11 - 4:30 p.m.

Walking softly, we stand on the riverbank in daylight looking for beaver activity. An ironwood tree is girdled, a strip of bare bark a sign the beavers had chewed on it as they stood on their hind feet. As we walk silently towards the bank, a head pops out of the water and swims towards the bank we stand upon. No flapping tail this time. The beaver approaches the bank and disappears under brush. Soon, he emerges and swims with a leafy branch back toward his pond.

Suddenly he dives, bringing the branch silently under the water with him. Ripples spread in what we have learned to read as a sign of underwater beavers. No sound, just ripples that circle out further and further on the still, green and black water. A flotilla of bright red and yellow maple leaves has gathered at the edge of the ponded-up area; more leaves flutter on trees nearby. The reflection of leaves and trees lie across the water like objects in a mirror; a stiff gust, and the reflected trunks and branches break apart like a jigsaw puzzle carelessly jarred.

Except for the sound of gently running water and a breeze moaning and sighing through the trees behind us, we hear no other sound, even with both beavers coming and going under the riverbank. We wonder if the branches brought back to the dammed-up area provide food for young kits; we wonder about the importance of young, striped maple saplings standing in the river bottom, with big yellow leaves fluttering like a sailboat’s pennants above water; we wonder why one beaver works to bring branches back and one sits nearby on a sandbar munching small, tender branches. 

As we watch, I move a bit to get a better look at the female as she chips away at her meal of branches and leaves. The next sound we hear is a solid phwap, and under she goes. The rain has started, darkness falls; we call it a day and head home. What a day!

By Helen Downing, Master Gardener