Monday afternoon I broke through some brush at the edge of the yard to cut some cattails for a floral design class one of our grad students was teaching. Lo and behold, I discovered the pond that El and I talked about putting in when we first moved here.
I knew the beavers were busy this summer. I could hear them at night plowing through the cattails back to the safety of water when I’d take the dogs out at night. But I had no idea how busy they were.
Their damn is probably 100 feet long and 4 or 5 feet tall at its highest point. It collects water from the small stream that runs behind our yard and the springs that also pop up in the area in and around the pond. There is a small lodge in the center.
From what I recall of beaver biology from my youth (hey, no snickers — I grew up near a small lake that had several beaver lodges), after a year of so, the young get kicked out of established lodges to go build their own. There are beavers in several areas of the wetland along the main creek. Guess it was getting crowded, so they moved up into our little branch.
I am planning to put some hardware cloth around the trunk of the willow tree down by the stream.  Beaver like willows, poplars and other species that colonize the flooded areas they create.
All that in one summer?! Amazing. Is the hardware cloth known to discourage the beavers, or is it kind of a shot in the dark kind of thing?
I went and looked it up and the advice I see from various state agencies and universities is to stake down a ring of heavy gauge fencing at least 4 feet tall — taller where snow may accumulate and the beavers can reach higher standing on packed snow. (That’s me.) Also, to leave space between the barrier and the tree to allow for growth.
Wow! It’s great to see a picture. We were walking along the stream/bog across from our house (near 79) and saw something really similar but weren’t sure whether it was a beaver dam or not because it was a mostly mud, when I thought they used mostly wood. Thanks for posting!