Beavers in the City
About a week ago, I was visiting a friend who lives in North Seattle near Lake City Way. After I arrived, she gathered up her dog, her son, his two friends, and me and led us on a secret mission. She kept the destination of our neighborhood walk a secret, even as the kids pleaded to know where we were going, and when we neared a shopping complex, insisted that the secret destination really, truly must be the Toys 'R Us. But no.
As we neared a boggy wetland beside a quiet neighborhood street, Amy motioned at the mud, pond, and drowned trees. She explained that this used to be a small neighborhood park with a creekside trail, "But," she asked, "What do you think happened here?"
As we rounded the corner, the mystery revealed itself: several large trees chomped, chiseled, and felled by beavers. The more we poked around, the more beavers signs we discovered. Their dam. Their dome-shaped lodge. Two beaver "slides" where they entered and exited the water. Several more tree trunks that the beavers had partially chewed through, and other trees protected with cages of wire fencing.
The beavers were a good reminder that everywhere, every day, wild animals are going about their lives in the city just as we are going about our human lives, often too busy and distracted to notice the amazing secrets tucked under rocks, nestled in tree limbs, and paddling upstream.
Photos by Amy Lang.
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