Each month we will be surveying the extent of beaver activity so far throughout the Trial Site. This week, volunteer Sorrel Renton Green and I have been searching each of the lochs and streams, recording all signs of beaver nibbling, gnawing, burrowing, scent marking and building to ensure that we can produce good data at the end of the Trial.
We have been excited to see that the Linne animals have been doing lots of tree felling, digging burrows and feeding on all sorts of different plants. They have even been eating bracken! Frank, Frid and Biffa certainly seem at home and the other night we were fortunate enough to witness a very touching Father-Son moment when they called to each other and continued to chatter away as they met up and groomed one another.
Meanwhile on Coille Bharr, Bjornar, Katrina and Mille have been exploring the tiny overgrown lochan just to the east of the main loch. This is much to the delight of local Dragonfly Recorder Pat Batty, who hopes that the beavers might open up the canopy a bit and help to make the pond better for these superb insects to breed in.
Down on the canal, our wandering juvenile beaver has also been eating bracken... and managing to take the sweet potato out of the trap without triggering it!
Each month we will be surveying the extent of beaver activity so far throughout the Trial Site. This week, volunteer Sorrel Renton Green and I have been searching each of the lochs and streams, recording all signs of beaver nibbling, gnawing, burrowing, scent marking and building to ensure that we can produce good data at the end of the Trial.
We have been excited to see that the Linne animals have been doing lots of tree felling, digging burrows and feeding on all sorts of different plants. They have even been eating bracken! Frank, Frid and Biffa certainly seem at home and the other night we were fortunate enough to witness a very touching Father-Son moment when they called to each other and continued to chatter away as they met up and groomed one another.
Meanwhile on Coille Bharr, Bjornar, Katrina and Mille have been exploring the tiny overgrown lochan just to the east of the main loch. This is much to the delight of local Dragonfly Recorder Pat Batty, who hopes that the beavers might open up the canopy a bit and help to make the pond better for these superb insects to breed in.
Down on the canal, our wandering juvenile beaver has also been eating bracken... and managing to take the sweet potato out of the trap without triggering it!
