beaver | The Prairie Ecologist

One of my favorite places within our Platte River Prairies is a restored wetland we usually call “the sandpit wetland” because it is a former sand and gravel mining pit. We restored the site over about 10 years, a little at a time, and it now features a meandering stream and various side channel, backwater, and off-channel pockets. You might remember the site from previous posts, including this one about sludge and this one (or this one) about timelapse imagery.

The Derr Sandpit wetland (2013 photo). The Nature Conservancy’s Platte River Prairies, Nebraska.

I always enjoy walking around the wetland – even if I’m fighting off invasive species – because there’s so much to see. I have a pretty good feel for the plant community at the site because it’s easy to find the plants and watch their slow movements around the wetland over time. There are more invertebrate species than I’ll ever be able to count, of course, let alone see, but I can usually find quite a few of them if I look. However, it’s harder to see and keep track of the larger animals – the birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals. For some reason, they don’t usually show themselves when I’m there… (Especially the otters…. don’t get me started.)

Our timelapse imagery over the last couple years has helped us keep track of some of the wildlife use at the site, but since those cameras only take photos at regular hourly intervals, catching animals in front of the camera is just a happy accident. Now, however, one of our longest tenured volunteers, Karen Hamburger, has taken it upon herself to find out what’s really out there. During the last year or so, she’s been setting a trail camera (actually more than one, since at least one was inundated in a flood) in various places around the wetland and capturing views of many wildlife species.

I finally had a chance to go through some of her favorite video clips the other day, and I made a short 3 minute video montage with some of them. It includes several bird species, beavers, deer, raccoons, and even (sigh) otters. We knew from tracks and other sign that most of these animals were around, but it’s one thing to see footprints and another to watch the critters themselves! This video gives us a wonderful and unique perspective on what happens at our wetland when we noisy blundering people aren’t around.

I hope you enjoy it.

THANK YOU to Karen for all the work to capture these moments for us, along with all the other work she’s done over the years!

If the video doesn’t display correctly above, you can try clicking HERE instead.

As I posted a couple days ago, I spent some time at my favorite wetland earlier this week. It was a cold, but very pleasant morning. The sun was moving in and out of thin clouds, creating attractive light and a nice sky for photograph backgrounds.

A beautiful early March day at The Nature Conservancy’s Derr Wetland.

An ice ridge formed along the edge of a flowing channel prior to the most recent cold spell. It apparently caught blowing snow during last weekend’s flurries.

I assume the gap near the bases of these cattails was formed either by wind or by the relative warmth of the cattail stems, but I can’t explain the mounded ice.

Beaver activity was obvious along the stream that runs into and through the wetland. Numerous dams are being maintained, and I found lots of recent tracks and marks from the dragging of sticks in patches of snow or bare sand. The beavers’ slowing of the streamflow probably enables the surface to freeze more quickly – to the detriment of waterfowl looking for a place to roost and feed – but the concentrated flow through the dams maintains small areas of open water where wildlife can access it.

Water pours over a small beaver dam.

The only open water left after the most recent cold snap was just below some of the larger beaver dams, though the ice was very thin in other places, especially above some of the more active springs.

Water flows through the spillway of a dam just upstream of the open wetland area. There are at least seven separate dams being maintained by the inhabitants of a single beaver lodge.

The beaver lodge is several hundred yards upstream of the main wetland area.

Beavers weren’t the only wildlife species active along the wetland. Based on recent images I downloaded from our timelapse cameras on site, waterfowl have also been using the wetland in big numbers. Canada geese, especially, have been abundant – especially before the surface froze last week. Based on evidence found at the scene, they have continued to use the frozen wetland too…

Goose feathers littered the frozen surface of the wetland

Here and there, tiny fluffs of feather clung to plants of all kinds.

Feathers were not the only thing geese left behind on the ice. I can’t think of a better way to end this blog post then with a big pile of goose poop. So there you go.

No beavers or geese were harmed during the making of this blog post. However, more than 300 images were shot during a two hour period.

The Prairie Ecologist

Essays, photos, and discussion about prairie ecology, restoration, and management

Tag Archives: beaver

Karen’s Wetland Videos

Photo of the Week – March 6, 2014