Watched by Wild Animals Part 4

CHAPTER IV

THE PERSISTENT BEAVER

I saw a forest fire sweeping down upon the Broken Tree Beaver colony, and I knew that the inhabitants could take refuge in their earthy, fire-proof houses in the water. Their five houses were scattered in the pond like little islands or ancient lake dwellings. A vigorous brook that came down from the snows on Mount Meeker flowed through the pond. Towering spruce trees encircled its sh.o.r.es.

The beavers survived the fiery ordeal, but their near-by and prospective winter food-supply was destroyed. This grove of aspen and every deciduous tree that might have furnished a bark food-supply was consumed or charred by the fire.

Instead of moving, the colony folks spent a number of days clearing the fire wreckage from their pond. With winter near and streams perilously low for travelling, it probably was unwise to go elsewhere and try to build a home and gather a harvest.

One night, early in October, the colonists gnawed down a number of aspens that had escaped the fire. These were in a grove several hundred feet down stream from the pond. A few nights later they commenced to drag the felled aspens up stream into their pond. This was difficult work, for midway between the grove and the pond was a waterfall. The beaver had to drag each aspen out of the water and up a steep bank and make a portage around the falls.

The second night of this up-stream transportation a mountain lion had lain in wait by the falls. Tracks and marks on the muddy slope showed that he had made an unsuccessful leap for two beavers on the portage.

The following morning an aspen of eighty pounds' weight which two beavers had evidently been dragging was lying on the slope. The lion had not only missed, but on the muddy slope he slipped and received a ducking in the deep water-hole below.

Transportation up stream was stopped. The remainder of the felled aspens were piled into a near-by "safety pond." A shallow stream which beavers use for a thoroughfare commonly has in it a safety pond which they maintain as a harbour, diving into it in case of attack. Usually winter food is stored within a few feet of the house, but in this case it was nearly six hundred feet away. In storing it in the safety pond, the beavers probably were making the best of a bad situation.

Two days after the attack from the lion the beavers commenced cutting trees about fifty yards north of their pond. The beavers took pains to clear a trail or log road over which to drag their felled trees to the pond. Two fallen tree trunks were gnawed into sections, and one section of each rolled out of the way. A two-foot opening was cleared through a tongue of willows, and the cuttings dragged into the pond and placed on top of the food-pile.

One morning a number of abandoned cuttings along this cleared way told that the harvesters had been put to flight. No work was done during the three following nights. Tracks in the mud showed that a lion was prowling about.

Pioneer dangers and hardships are the lot of beaver colonists. The history of every old beaver house is full of stirring interest. The house and the dam must have constant care. Forest fires or other uncontrollable accidents may force the abandonment of the colony at a time when the conditions for travelling are deadly, or when travelling must be done across the country. A score may leave the old home, but only a few survive the journey to the new home site.

The Broken Tree colonists continued the harvest by cutting the scattered aspens along the stream above the pond. A few were cut a quarter of a mile up stream. Before these could be floated down into the pond it was necessary to break a jam of limbs and old trees that had collected against a boulder. The beaver gnawed a hole through the jam. One day a harvester who ventured far up a shallow brook was captured by a grizzly bear. During this unfortunate autumn it is probable that others were lost besides these mentioned.

Harvest-getting ended by the pond and the stream freezing over. It is probable that the colonists had to live on short rations that winter.

One winter day a beaver came swimming down into the safety pond. I watched him through the ice. He dislodged a small piece of aspen from the pile in the bottom of the pond and with it went swimming up stream beneath the ice. At the bottom of the icy falls I found a number of aspen cuttings with the bark eaten off. While examining these, I discovered a hole or pa.s.sageway at the bottom of the falls. This tunnel extended through the earth into the pond above. This underground portage route enabled the beavers to reach their supplies down stream.

The fire had killed a number of tall spruces on the edge of the pond, and their tall half-burned mats swayed threateningly in the wind. One night two of the dead spruces were hurled into the pond. The smaller one had fallen across a housetop, but the house was thick-walled and, being frozen, had sustained the shock which broke the spruce into sections. The other fallen tree fell so heavily upon two of the houses that they were crushed like sh.e.l.ls. At least four beavers were killed and a number injured.

Spring came early, and the colonists were no doubt glad to welcome it.

The pond, during May and June, was a beautiful place. Gra.s.s and wild flowers brightened the sh.o.r.e, and the tips of the spruces were thick with dainty bloom. Deer came up from the lowlands and wild sheep came down from the heights. The woods and willows were filled with happy mating birds. The ousel built and sang by the falls near which it had wintered. Wrens, saucy as ever, and quiet bluebirds and numbers of wise and watchful magpies were about. The Clarke crows maintained their noisy reputation, and the robins were robins still.

One May morning I concealed myself behind a log by the pond, within twenty feet of the largest beaver house. I hoped to see the young beavers. My crawling behind a log was too much for a robin, and she raised such an ado concerning a concealed monster that other birds came to join in the hubbub and to help drive me away. But I did not move, and after two or three minutes of riot the birds took themselves off to their respective nesting-sites.

Presently a brown nose appeared between the house and my hiding place.

As a mother beaver climbed upon one of the spruce logs thrust out of the water, her reflection in the water mingled with spruces and the white clouds in the blue field above. She commenced to dress her fur--to make her toilet. After preliminary scratching and clawing with a hind foot, she rose and combed with foreclaws; a part of the time with both forepaws at once. Occasionally she scratched with the double nail on the second toe of the hind foot. It is only by persistent bathing, combing, and cleaning that beavers resist the numerous parasites which thick fur and stuffy, crowded houses encourage.

A few mornings later the baby beavers appeared. The mother attracted my attention with some make-believe repairs on the farther end of the dam, and the five youngsters emerged from the house through the water and squatted on the side of the house before I saw them. For a minute all sat motionless. By and by one climbed out on a projecting stick and tumbled into the water. The others showed no surprise at this accident.

The one in the water did not mind but swam outward where he was caught in the current that started to carry him over the dam. At this stage his mother appeared. She simply rose beneath him. He accepted the opportunity and squatted upon her back with that expressionless face which beavers carry most of the time. There are occasions, however, on which beavers show expression of fear, surprise, eagerness, and even intense pleasure. The youngster sat on his mother's back as though asleep while she swam with him to the house. Here he climbed off in a matter-of-fact way, as though a ride on a ferry-boat was nothing new to him.

A few weeks later the mother robin who had become so wrought up over my hiding had times of dreadful excitement concerning the safety of her children. If anything out of the usual occurs, the robin insists that the worst possible is about to happen. This season the mother robin had nested upon the top of the beaver house. This was one of the safest of places, but so many things occurred to frighten her that it is a wonder she did not die of heart disease. The young robins were becoming restless at the time the young beavers were active. Every morning, when on the outside of the beaver house each young beaver started in turn as though to climb to the top, poor Mother Robin became almost hysterical. At last, despite all her fears, her entire brood was brought safely off.

During the summer, a majority of the Broken Tree beavers abandoned the colony and moved to other scenes. A number built a half-mile down stream, while the others, with one exception, travelled to an abandoned beaver colony on the first stream to the north. Overland this place was only half a mile from the Broken Tree, but by water route, down stream to the forks then up the other stream to the colony, the distance was three miles. This was an excellent place to live, and with but little repair an old abandoned dam was made better than a new one. All summer a lone beaver of this colony rambled about.

Once he returned to the Broken Tree colony. Finally, he cast his lot with the long-established colony several miles down stream.

Late this summer a huge landslide occurred on the stream above the Broken Tree pond. The slide material blocked the channel and formed a large, deep pond. From this dam of debris and the torn slope from which it slipped came such quant.i.ties of sediment that it appeared as though the pond might be filled. Every remaining colonist worked day and night to build a dam on the stream just above their pond. They worked like beavers. This new pond caught and stopped the sediment. It was apparently built for this purpose.

The colonists who remained repaired only two of the five houses, and between these they piled green aspen and willow for winter food. But before a tree was cut they built a dam to the north of their home.

Water for this was obtained by a ditch or ca.n.a.l dug from the stream at a point above the sediment-catching pond. When the new pond was full, a low gra.s.sy ridge about twenty feet across separated it from the old one. A ca.n.a.l about three feet wide and from one to two feet deep was cut through the ridge, to connect the two ponds. The aspens harvested were taken from the slope of a moraine beyond the north sh.o.r.e of the new pond. The ca.n.a.l and the new pond greatly shortened the land distance over which the trees had to be dragged, and this made harvesting safer, speedier, and easier.

Occasionally the beavers did daytime work. While on the lookout one afternoon an old beaver waddled up the slope and stopped by a large standing aspen that had been left by the other workers. At the very bottom this tree was heavily swollen. The old beaver took a bite of its bark and ate with an expressionless face. Evidently it was good, for after eating the old fellow scratched a large pile of trash against the base of the tree, and from this platform gnawed the tree off above the swollen base. While he was gnawing a splinter of wood wedged between his upper front teeth. This was picked out by catching it with the double nails of the second toe on the right hind foot.

This aspen was ten inches in diameter at the point cut off. The diameter of trees cut is usually from three to six inches. The largest beaver cutting that I have measured was a cottonwood with a diameter of forty-two inches. On large, old trees the rough bark is not eaten, but from the average tree which is felled for food all of the bark and a small per cent of the wood is eaten. Rarely will a beaver cut dead wood, and only in emergencies will he cut a pine or a spruce.

Apparently the pitch is distasteful to him.

One day another beaver cut a number of small aspens and dragged these, one or two at a time, to the pond. After a dozen or more were collected, all were pushed off into the water. Against this small raft the beaver placed his forepaws and swimming pushed it to the food-pile near the centre of the old pond.

At the close of harvest the beavers in Broken Tree colony pond covered their houses above waterline with mud, which they dredged from the pond around the foundations of their houses. Sometimes this mud was moved in their forepaws, sometimes by hooking the tail under and dragging it between their hind legs. Then they dug a channel in the bottom of the pond, which extended from the houses to the dam.

Parallel with the dam they dug out another channel; the excavated material was placed on the top of the dam. They also made a shallow ditch in the bottom of the pond that extended from the house to the ca.n.a.l that united the two ponds.

The following summer was a rainy one, and the pond filled with sediment to the height of the dam. Most of this sediment came from the landslide debris or its sliding place. The old Broken Tree colony was abandoned.

Different from most animals, the beaver has a permanent home. The beaver has a strong attachment, or love, for his old home, and will go to endless work and repeatedly risk dangers to avoid moving away. He will dig ca.n.a.ls, build dams, or even drag supplies long distances by land through difficult and dangerous places that he may live on in the old place. Here his ancestors may have been born and here he may spend his lifetime. In most cases, however, a colony is not continuously occupied this long. A flood, fire, or the complete exhaustion of food may compel him to move and seek a new home.

In abandoning the Broken Tree pond, one set of dwellers simply went up stream and took possession of the pond which the landslide had formed.

Here they gathered supplies and dug a hole or den in the bank but they built no house. An underground tube or pa.s.sageway connected this den with the bottom of the pond.

The remainder of the colonists started anew about three hundred feet to the north of the old pond. Here a dam about sixty feet long was built, mostly of mud and turf excavated from the area to be filled with water for their pond. They commenced their work by digging a trench and piling the material excavated on the lower side--the beginning of the dam. This ditch was then widened and deepened until the pond was completed. All excavated material was placed upon the dam.

Evidently the site for the house, as well as for the pond, was deliberately selected. The house was built in the pond alongside a spring which in part supplied the pond with water. The supply of winter food was stored in the deep hole from which the material for the house was excavated. The water from the spring checked freezing near the house and the food-pile, and prevented the ice from troubling the colonists. Beavers apparently comprehend the advantage of having a house close to a spring. This spring commonly is between the main house entrance and the winter food-pile.

Their pond did not fill with sediment. As the waters came entirely from springs they were almost free of sediment. After eighteen years of use there was but a thin covering of sediment on the bottom of the pond. Neither brook nor stream entered this pond. Was this pond constructed in this place for the purpose of avoiding sediment? As beavers occasionally and with much labour build in a place of this kind, when there are other and easier near-by places in which to build, it may be that this pond was placed here because it would escape sediment. This was the founding of the Spruce Tree colony. It is still inhabited.

CHAPTER V

THE OTTER PLAYS ON

A long-bodied, yellow-brown animal walked out of the woods and paused for a moment by the rapids of a mountain stream. Its body architecture was that of a dachshund, with the stout neck and small upraised head of a sea lion. Leaping into the rushing water it shot the rapids in a spectacular manner. At the bottom of the rapids it climbed out of the water on the bank opposite me and stopped to watch its mate. This one stood at the top of the rapids. It also leaped in and joyfully came down with the torn and speeding water. It joined the other on the bank.

Together they climbed to the top of the rapids. Again these daredevils gave a thrilling exhibition of running the rushing water. They were American otter, and this was a part of their fun and play. A single false move and the swift water would have hurled and broken them against projecting rocks. In the third run one clung to the top of a boulder that peeped above the mad, swirling water. The other shot over its back a moment later and endeavoured in pa.s.sing to kick it off.

Though I had frequented the woods for years and had seen numerous otter slides, this was the beginning of my acquaintance with this audacious and capable animal whose play habit and individuality so enliven the wilderness.

Play probably is the distinguishing trait of this peculiar animal. He plays regularly--in pairs, in families, or with numbers who appear to meet for this special purpose. Evidently he plays when this is not connected with food getting or mating. He plays in Florida, in the Rocky Mountains, and in Alaska; in every month of the year; in the sunlight, the moonlight, or darkness. The slippery, ever freshly used appearance of bank slides indicates constant play.

The best otter play that I ever watched was staged one still winter night by a stream in the Medicine Bow Mountains. The snowy slide lay in the moonlight, with the shadow of a solitary fir tree across it. It extended about forty feet down a steep slope to the river. The slide had not been in use for two nights, but coasters began to appear about nine o'clock. A pair opened the coasting. They climbed up the slope together and came down singly. No others were as yet in sight. But in a few minutes fourteen or more were in the play.

Most of the coasters emerged from an open place in the ice over the rapids, but others came down the river over the snow. As the otter population of this region was spa.r.s.e the attendance probably included the otter representatives of an extensive area. Tracks in the snow showed that four--possibly a family--had come from another stream, travelling over a high intervening ridge four or five miles across.

Many may have come twenty miles or farther.

The winter had been dry and cold. The few otters recently seen by daylight were hunting over the snow for grouse and rabbits, far from the stream. Otter food was scarce. Probably many, possibly all, of these merrymakers were hungry, but little would you have guessed it from their play.

It was a merry-go-round of coasters climbing up single file by the slide while coaster after coaster shot singly down. Each appeared to start with a head-foremost vault or dive and to dart downward over the slides with all legs flattened and pointing backward. Each coaster, as a rule, shot straight to the bottom, though a few times one went off at an angle and finished with a roll. A successful slide carried the coaster far out on the smooth ice and occasionally to the farther bank of the river.