© J.N. Urbanski
A beaver has moved into the hood, specifically the woods at the end of my road, and now I realize why the term “eager beaver” came into existence because he’s highly prolific. In his new habitat, a roadside pond, he has downed nearly ten trees in the short space of a week and was spotted yesterday, clearly from the road, swimming around on his back, surveying his work. One of the trees he felled looks to be about a foot in diameter. The town excavators who were clearing out all the gulleys in the area last week may not have noticed his handy work, but it looks like the over-achieving beaver is building the Empire State Building of dams and this could be a problem for the small stream that drains through the pond. He swims late in the day when the sun has warmed the pond, so I’ll be back around 4pm to see if I can catch him.
© J.N. Urbanski
© J.N. Urbanski
Hi Jenny,
The beaver has not been shown as ‘highly prolific’ as he or she has not produced an abundance of young, nor many products of the mind. (Websters) Scribblers fun correction. The mink may have been attracted to the new wetland constructed by the beaver. And by the way the beaver was not swimming on his back as only otters are known to do the backstroke.
From your scribbling naturalist friend,
Jack
OMG, it’s an otter?! I’m not a wildlife expert, so it could be! My dictionary says that prolific can mean “high scoring” (like a baseball player), or “producing many works” like an artist. We could read this as “producing a hugely impressive dam”, couldn’t we?
On ‘prolific’ my Websters is a dictionary/thesaurus therefore the definitions are limited. I do agree with you that one could be prolific at many endeavors. The photo of the ‘mink’ in the tree, might that have been a fisher? I am not aware of mink scaling trees to such a height, fisher yes, but I must admit I do not know. On the hunting issue; we are now in rifle season, shotguns may be used, but must be loaded with a rifled slug.
The encountered hunter crept silently toward you? Very strange dude indeed. We have oafs in the woods hunting (not the majority), some oafs also hike. I was both except an oaf – I think – perspective. The deer/people problem – all problems if researched to the source wind up with people at the root.
PS Delighted to hear that Julia Reischel will be joining us 12/1.
Cheers,
Your co-scribbler,
Jack
Thanks for the info, Jack. I went back and heard the beaver beavering, but only saw his head. This morning there was a thinly spread sheet of ice on the pond. No sign of the beaver.