Beaver tales
You never know what you will see when you walk on Miner’s Marsh.
That’s why I walk there as often as I can. Every hour brings new sights and sounds. At this time of year, the red-winged blackbirds are whirring and turning double somersaults. What a joyful thing to see a dozen or more swallows swooping overhead. Last week, a full chorus of peepers were singing, harmonizing with some other kind of frog.
When the marsh first opened to the public, there was a reed structure in the south west pond. At that time, there were many muskrat, as there are today, but I never saw any animal go into the structure.
Walkers on the marsh debated whether the thing was made by animal or by man. It was the size of a large dog kennel with an opening to the east. After two or three years it disintegrated and collapsed under the water. Muskrats continue to pull their distinctive v-shaped ripple over the water. The speed of their course is punctuated by the sideways propulsion of their whip-like tails. Sometimes you can see them dragging a mouthful of cattails into a burrow on one of the islands.
Here is a mystery. In past years, quite a few people have claimed to have seen a beaver on Miner’s Marsh. How could that be? Surely if there were a beaver, there would be no trees left round the perimeter of the marsh.
Still, muskrat heads are similar to the wedge-shaped head of a beaver and it’s difficult to make out the tail when a muskrat is swimming and at a distance. Without taking size into consideration, as you likely wouldn’t if you were seeing an animal for the first time, anyone would deduce the creature could be a beaver, especially taking that dam-shaped structure into consideration. However, beavers are several times the size of muskrats.
Recently, a family was out on the marsh. The children had nets and were straining the puddles near the edge of the river. Suddenly, they all froze, watching intently something on the far side of the river. A creature was winding its way through the brush at the edge of the opposite bank. I stood with the family, hearing the twigs snap, seeing slender trunks brush against dark brown fur. The creature was about 30 pounds. Finally, I thought, a coypu!
“I think it’s a beaver,” the dad said. Sure enough, the broad, leathery tail came into sight. It was the tail that was making its progress along the bank so awkwardly. It was obviously looking for a way down into the river, stopping to examine the bank, which is high at that point, every few steps.
Suddenly, it found a way down. A yellow dog with a curly tail charged it at full bark and the beaver leapt off the bank. The splash sounded like a belly flop and sent a fountain of spray above the bank.
It only remains to see a coypu. your view
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