Chuck Zumbrun

Tales from Skunk Hill

Busy As

Tom and I went and seeded wild rice in some lake channels on one of our farms. While we were there we noticed the beavers had been very active. There were fresh shavings and trees they’d gnawed down and trees they were still working on.

This first one was a fair sized tree, maybe a foot in diameter that they had just felled.

Newly Felled
Newly Felled
Newly Felled
Newly Felled

But on the other side of the channel they are working on some huge trees. I can’t imagine what they’re going to do with these when they do get them chewed down.

Big Tree
Big Tree
Bigger Tree
Bigger Tree
Huge Tree
Huge Tree

Beavers are notoriously shy and difficult to photograph. But I was lucky and got a picture of one working on a tree.

Beaver?
Beaver?

They always look so different in real life.

5 responses to “Busy As”

  1. Missy Avatar
    Missy

    Oh my gosh I’m laughing so hard. I’m thinking that beaver let his picture be taken cause his teeth are caught in the tree.

    I was surprised, though, when I saw you were talking about beavers in this post. When I popped to the page I first thought you would be talking about cutting some trees down when I saw the pictures. That is amazing how big those trees are that they are working on.

  2. anne Avatar
    anne

    So do they normally pull the tree somewhere to make a dam, or gnaw it into smaller pieces and then move it?

  3. Lana Avatar
    Lana

    So will the trees that Tom chews down be used to build a Tom dam?

  4. Missy Avatar
    Missy

    Will the beavers move the Tom-felled tree or does he have to do it?

  5. chuck Avatar
    chuck

    I think when they drop the big tree they just chew the small limbs off and leave the big trunk lie there.

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