Bears, Beaver, and Beauty - UPDATE April 30, 2022
Beaver with duck swimming nearby
Beaver with duck swimming nearby
Ted was good yesterday on opening day, cleaning up his plate like I was taught to do as a child. Not quite the same, but the same idea as shown in this 14-second video
https://www.facebook.com/NorthAmericanBearCenter/videos/689489275625060Two other bears from Tennessee didn’t seem quite so nice, but they got a lot of comments from viewers. I wanted to comment, too, but the truth is: I’m not sure of the situation. I couldn’t get any sound, which is what makes it confusing. Play can be rough but is done quietly. Fighting is noisy. On TV programs, play is usually shown as fighting by dubbing in ferocious sounds. But this seemed a bit vigorous for play, but I saw no biting. Play includes a lot of biting, but it is gentle. That’s why when a bear plays too rough with me I put my arm in its mouth to immobilize it, knowing it won’t bite hard. Then I usually can roll it on its back and rub its belly to put it in another mood. No biting in the video makes it more confusing. I thought the video might be a male with a not-ready female, but April 27 is a bit early for this kind of interaction—at least in northern Minnesota, but this was in Tennessee where I might be wrong. Certainly a high action video. Here it is:
https://www.facebook.com/tnwildlife/videos/1197805724321404 Exciting but confusing. I would have to be there and know the sexes and be able to hear the vocalizations to know better.
Editor's note: Upon watching the video complete with sound, these bears were making the fighting sounds like researchers filmed in 2006 shown on bear.org:
https://bear.org/mating-battle-combatantsBeaver swimming
Beaver swimming
A beaver and bears were the excitement at the WRI yesterday. Bears included Chloe, Lincoln, Charlie Brown, Jackson, Floyd, and an unknown male weighing 188 pounds with no chest blaze that I should know, it seems, but can’t quite place him. I have to get an ID photo and see if anyone knows his face.
The beaver showed me something I’d never seen before. He (let’s say) was eating a stick, removing the dark bark and the nutritional layer, leaving the bare yellow wood. He probably did this all winter in his lodge by swimming underwater to bite off a twig from his winter food cache outside the lodge and carrying it inside to eat. But now Woods Lake is living up to its reputation of having the first open water in the area—the bay where a flowing stream exits the lake, so the beaver was out biting a stick off the cache and calmly eating it. I just had to get a picture of my first beaver of the year. I didn’t want to disturb him and was disappointed when he dove underwater and left. But then he surfaced near me to check me out. All I did was click the camera, so he dove under and swam under ice to come up at the cache and resume debarking his stick.
Beaver dam
Beaver dam
Beaver lodge
Beaver lodge
Next came a pair of mallards with the brown female poking her head into mounds of soil and roots covered by old vegetation. I suspect she was finding small hidden bits of new growth coming up. Then she got to the mound right next to the beaver. To my surprise, neither one of these aquatic dwellers showed any fear of each other. The beaver just kept eating and the hen mallard kept poking her head into a mound maybe a foot from the beaver. She’d bury her head in the vegetation with no concern about keeping track of the beaver. Then she moved around to the side of the mound where the beaver was. No reactions. She continued foraging while the beaver continued eating inches away. As she squeezed past him, might have even touched him with no response. Could she tell he wasn’t an otter that sometimes eats ducks? I don’t know. I can’t explain it. I just saw it and was intrigued by the trust and how the two ignored each other. I don’t know if they like being ignored like I liked being ignored by bears that I was accompanying and feeling honored that they accepted me and didn’t think I was a bad guy.Purple finch
Purple finch
The beaver dam included yellow twigs with the bark eaten off that were probably part of his diet over winter. The lodge was a new one made last fall that I had not noticed until a couple days ago. It sits where our view from the deck is blocked by leafy branches. It is only about 140 feet from the WRI cabin. I look forward to checking it out when the lake opens up for a canoe. I want to open up the view to it so course participants and I can see it easily from the deck. It’s something I want to listen to from a canoe when there might be kits. I look forward to watching and photographing the kits. Always something of interest going on in nature.
Then, out the window, a beautiful purple finch landed on the railing. It looked unusually bright so I clicked the camera that is always next to me at my desk. The picture gave me the best view I’ve ever had of a purple finch. It shows the brown feathers of the wing tips, the intermediate color closer to the shoulder, and the dark not-so-bright red on his back. The head is brilliant, as it’s supposed to be, but it was extra brilliant—the most beautiful I’ve ever seen a purple finch to be. I suppose there can be differences like that, but I was surprised by its color.
Thank you for all you do,
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
