The Matthaei Botanical Gardens were established in 1907. A few weeks ago, for the first time in its history, Fleming Creek, which runs through the garden, became the site of a beaver dam! We noticed it on a walk a couple of weeks ago, and came back to see how the beavers were doing. What fun.
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| Walking towards the trails, you cross a little pond, and then go along Fleming Creek to the beavers' site. |
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| The dam is a bit chaotic: sticks and brush that the beavers piled up to make their dam. They seem to work very fast! |
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| We watched from the platform, which conveniently was already built before the beavers moved in. Then we crossed the stream and looked at the other side. |
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| Water spills over and through the piled-up sticks and leaves, and collects behind the dam. |
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| Screen shot from the official trail cam image of the beaver (link). Beavers work at night when the gardens are closed to humans. |
Update: Several commenters asked if the beaver dam was to be removed or destroyed. ABSOLUTELY NOT!! The management of the Botanical Gardens are delighted by the return of this Michigan keystone species to the garden. Beavers were once common throughout the state, and are slowly coming back.
Photos by mae sander © 2023
Shared with Eileen's Saturday Critters.
10 comments:
Beavers can do a lot of damage but they are so fun to see. Will the damn be taken down, do you know?
Well, they’ve been busy.
Great post.
They're such clever animals.
They sure are great architects. I, too, would like to know if it will be taken away/broken down?
Looks like a beautiful place for a walk. The beavers are busy critters working hard on their dams. Thank you for linking up and sharing your post. Take care, have a great weekend. PS, thank you for leaving me a comment.
So skillfully done!
I'm so glad they are free to build their dams. And how interesting to watch the progress. Neat photos of this amazing critter!
How interesting! I don't think we have beavers around my area in Philadelphia at least not that I'm aware of.
Beautiful blog
Incredible! Beavers are truly amazing engineers, and it's fascinating to see them in action.
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