Anatomy of a Food Cache

In Finishing the Food Cache I talked about how beavers arrange their food cache to maximize the space available. Yesterday I got this close up picture of a small food cache made up almost entirely of willow branches. Click on the photo to see the fine branch tips radiating out from the underwater core of the cache.

The beavers anchored the branches butt-first into the mud and the branches are interwoven with each other. A skilled floral arranger couldn't have done a better job!

The second picture shows the small lodge near the food cache. Based on the grass on the lodge and the minimum amount of mud I think this was an older lodge that has been renovated. This colony is probably a pair of young 2 year old beavers that met and bonded this summer and are now getting ready to spend their first winter together. If all goes well this winter they may start raising a family next year.

Happy Creek Forest Fire!

I just got back from a run on the Happy Creek Trail. A little before 5:00 PM MST I came across a forest fire east of the trail on the east side of the creek. The location is about 1.5 km south of Maxwell Lake. The fire was about 20 m x 20 m and blazing almost to the treetops. Another 10 minutes of running brought me to the Beaver Boardwalk where I borrowed a cell phone and called 911 to report the fire.

Now I'm home and writing this post! The government folks are on their way out to the fire. I don't expect it will do much. It's pretty cool and not much wind. I'll get a picture of the aftermath and post it here in the next several days.

November 16, 2009 update

It turned out the fire I saw was an old cabin that was fully ablaze. The SRD folks went up the next day. They hauled in some fire hoses to soak the site and they cut down some scorched trees. Here's a photo of the aftermath.

The fire started in or around the cabin, which was completely destroyed. Fortunately the weather was cool and the forest was moist, so the fire didn't spread.

Beaver Trails

Most of the year beavers don't stray too far from the safety of water. All that changes in the fall when they strart putting up their winter food supply. Then it's necessary to travel overland to the groceries. Travelling the same routes each time and dragging back branches forms recognizable trails. Sometimes these are hard to capture in a picture. Yesterday I lucked out and found this trail network highlighted by a light covering of snow - in fact it was snowing when I hit the shutter button.

The second picture shows the overall layout of this beaver colony. The view is looking downstream from a road. I added arrows showing a dam, a bank lodge, and the location of the food cache. Click on the picture for a larger view. The open water in the upstream pond is being kept open by beaver activity, not water flow. Soon the cold will win and this colony will be iced in to just the lower pond, which is maintained by another lower dam not visible in the picture.

The Outdoor Classroom

Hexagon in shape, the outdoor classroom commands the best corner on the original phase of the Beaver Boardwalk. The idea here was to provide a larger area for small groups to use. Maybe it's a little small for a full school class, but that doesn't seem to matter. And who might have imagined what innovative uses might occur? I've personally seen yoga, a game of chess, and a watercoulor artist at her easel. Hinton Town Council has held meetings there, and someone told me that it was used once for wedding pictures. And yes, it's used by school groups. That's all great - just the kind of things I had in mind.

There's a story behind the hexagon shape. I thought that shape would be interesting and more efficient for talking to a group. The construction of a hexagon was another matter altogether. Fortunately for me, Mark Schoenberger and some of his kids volunteered just when I was trying to figure out the framing. Mark has a lot of carpentry experience and with his knowledge between the two of us we got the framing done in record time. Not bad considering there was about 6" of water on top of mud and ice at the time, which made for treacherous footing and more than one pratfall by both of us. We finished muddy and triumphant. Another great day building the boardwalk!

The Waterdeck

When we designed the 3rd phase of the Beaver Boardwalk I wanted to extend a short section into Maxwell Lake and build in seating so people could relax and enjoy nature. Originally I thought it would have to be a floating structure because I thought the lake bottom would be too soft to support posts. But that assumption was wrong, so the waterdeck is supported by pressure-treated posts just like most of the boardwalk is.

So for those who didn't notice, a little secret. I didn't want the waterdeck to be a great height above the water (remember my "close to nature" desire above). Turns out that I should have been a little more careful with my estimation. When spring came and the lake level began to rise it was pretty obvious the new waterdeck was soon going to be the underwaterdeck. There was nothing to do but admit error and raise the deck, which ended up being an enjoyable Saturday's work. I unscrewed everything and raised the whole structure by the width of a 2 x 8, which turned out to be just about right.

The extra benefit to that beautiful day was the chance to talk with a couple from Austria and a family from England who were enjoying the boardwalk and wanted to know what I was doing. They were very interested in natural history and I enjoyed chatting with them.

By the way, it's called the waterdeck because of a great suggestion by Beth MacCallum. She didn't think we should call it a wharf or a dock because we didn't want to encourage watercraft use of Maxwell Lake. Voila - the waterdeck!

Finishing the Food Cache

Warmer weather in the past week has opened up most of Maxwell Lake again, and the beaver colony is really working hard to get their lodge and food cache in top shape for the winter. I've given them a full pickup load of aspen each of the last 3 evenings. Normally it takes them 2-3 days to float that much aspen down to the lodge but lately they've been topping thier own accomplishments. Their rate of food removal has increased to a pickup load a day. All of the 11 beavers help build the food cache but the kits can't take larger branches - only the adults can handle those.

So besides the incredible work capacity of these amazing animals there's another marvel. How do they manage to cram 24 pickup loads of aspen branches into a compact pile that seems to take up no more room on the surface than a single pickup load of loose branches? Of course 11 beavers working so hard must need a lot of food, so it's not all in the winter food pile. But a lot of it is. Someday I want to go snorkeling around one of these food caches in the late fall. I'll bet there's an interesting sight to see.

By the way, I've been giving the beavers some pretty large logs just to see what they can handle. I don't know if they might cut some of these into smaller pieces or take them as they are, but logs of 8" diameter and about 8' long have disappeared. That's a pretty fair weight for me to lift, and I'm over 200 lbs. Even considering the log is floating in the water, for a 45 lb beaver to wrestle it with no problem demonstrates awesome strength.

Lake Tower

The 2nd observation tower was built in spring 2009 at the east end of Maxwell Lake as part of the 3rd and final constuction phase of the Beaver Boardwalk. This lake tower has two stories, with a separate section of boardwalk accessing the ground floor and an elevated ramp to the upper floor. The ramp ended up being considerably longer than planned to keep it on Town of Hinton property and still support wheelchair access. An unintended benefit turned out to be the birding in the willow canopy along the ramp. There were great views of many small birds such as this family of yellow warblers (photograph by Paul Higgins) that are often very difficult to see in the dense shrubbery.

So why two levels? Like the pond tower, the upper floor on the lake tower is for nature observation. The ground floor (actually it's the water level floor) is also for use by skaters in the winter. Skaters will have a place to sit and put on their skates or get out of the wind, and somewhere to stash their gear.

A few people have asked me why you can't get from the upper floor to the lower floor without going the long way around. I did think about putting in stairs (and I had a dream about a fireman's pole, which would have been fun!) but I abandoned those ideas pretty quickly. I couldn't see any way to connect the two floors without creating a safety issue. Wood stairs in the winter covered in snow aren't my idea of a safe undertaking. Take the time to visit each level - you won't be disappointed.