A Beaver Dam at the Botanical Gardens

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.

Walking towards the trails, you cross a little pond, and then go along Fleming Creek to the beavers' site.

The dam is a bit chaotic: sticks and brush that the beavers piled up to make their dam.
They seem to work very fast!

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.

Water spills over and through the piled-up sticks and leaves, and collects behind the dam.

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.

Beaches

As our ship, the National Geographic Venture, headed around the tip of Baja California, we stopped at a number of very beautiful beaches, where we were often the only humans. The long expanses of sand, the dunes, the birds, and other creatures are just wonderful!

Sand Dollar Beach

Everyone agreed that this beach had more sand dollars than we’ve seen on any beach elsewhere.

We walked across the dunes for around 20 minutes to
go from our landing spot to Sand Dollar Beach on the Pacific Ocean side.

Beach Picnic

S’mores of course!

Coyotes on the Beach

Our guide Carlos pointed out these coyotes that live on the dunes near a beach.

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After a very interesting wildlife walk, Carlos sketched a whale on the beach.

 

Birds own the Mangrove Beaches

 

Photos © 2023 mae sander

Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge

Birding at Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge, we saw many young eagles,
as well as a wide variety of other birds.

Another young eagle -- Len's photo.

There were herons everywhere, even on the road.

A few white pelicans were around.

I love kingfishers. We saw several, but they are very active and hard to capture in a photo.

The whole refuge is very beautiful.

Where we were!

Our previous visit to the refuge was in October, 2014, blogged here.

 Photos copyright © 2021 mae and len sander.

The World’s Best Wildlife Photos

The Guardian’s photo essays are wonderful.
Here’s an image from Mitzpe Ramon, Israel, of some
Ibex that have become bold because of the lockdown.
Italy, Tibet, Canada, Singapore, South Africa ... the whole world is here
and welcome to those of us who can’t travel or get out of the house..

You can see the entire set of photos here:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2021/jan/29/the-week-in-wildlife-in-pictures