Wildlife Sighting
Jun. 5th, 2008 10:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kevin_standleeOne real advantage of the longer days this time of year was that, despite my working late, we still had about an hour of light left after having dinner. We therefore decided to take the longer route through John Day Park. This was where, some of you may recall, I've seen deer and what seemed like signs of beaver. It being twilight, this was a good time of day for wildlife to start stirring about. As we came around a corner on what I've tagged as the "beaver pond," Lisa heard a splash and saw a bit of movement out of the corner of her eye, stopped, and pointed.
About five or six meters away from us, across one of the streams which flow through the park, was a beaver, who had just popped out of the water and was sitting on the far bank, frozen, presumably hoping we wouldn't notice him. Indeed, he was sufficiently well camouflaged that had he not moved just as we were approaching, we might have missed him.
Now that we knew what to look for, we realized that the path in front of us was clearly an beaver-crossing point between the pond and the stream. You could see the points where the beaver have been coming out of the water and crossing the path. We left the beaver to its business and continued up the path, where we could see beaver-sized holes going into likely lodge sites along the bank.
A little further along, I caught sight of movement out on the middle of the pond. There we saw another beaver swimming along. We watched it climb out onto one of the many islands in the pond.
We couldn't stick around very long. Besides the fact that it was getting dark, the windless evening meant that the bugs were out in full force, and I had no desire to be an all-you-can-eat buffet for mosquitoes. We continued on our way and headed "around the loop" for our 5k walk, getting home about an hour after we had left. There were no deer this evening -- I expect they've moved up-country as the spring turns into summer -- but I was pleased that my guesses about beaver in the park were correct.
About five or six meters away from us, across one of the streams which flow through the park, was a beaver, who had just popped out of the water and was sitting on the far bank, frozen, presumably hoping we wouldn't notice him. Indeed, he was sufficiently well camouflaged that had he not moved just as we were approaching, we might have missed him.
Now that we knew what to look for, we realized that the path in front of us was clearly an beaver-crossing point between the pond and the stream. You could see the points where the beaver have been coming out of the water and crossing the path. We left the beaver to its business and continued up the path, where we could see beaver-sized holes going into likely lodge sites along the bank.
A little further along, I caught sight of movement out on the middle of the pond. There we saw another beaver swimming along. We watched it climb out onto one of the many islands in the pond.
We couldn't stick around very long. Besides the fact that it was getting dark, the windless evening meant that the bugs were out in full force, and I had no desire to be an all-you-can-eat buffet for mosquitoes. We continued on our way and headed "around the loop" for our 5k walk, getting home about an hour after we had left. There were no deer this evening -- I expect they've moved up-country as the spring turns into summer -- but I was pleased that my guesses about beaver in the park were correct.
