Beaver Family

The photos in this update were taken over a two week period.  I spent every morning, from sunrise until 7:30, observing and photographing the activities of this family group which consists of the adult male and female, two adolescents (last years young) and two kits (this years young).

All members of the family help care for the kits with grooming and bringing them food...

Every morning the adults would appear first, often to be followed by the kits for a session of grooming and playing...

 

 

The affection shown between the adults and the kits is very obvious...

 

Here, a kit is interacting with one of the adults...

 

 

 

In the following photo, a kit and adolescent are playing...

 

 

The adult male shows some distinctive scars that makes him easy to identify...

 

 

Since beaver males do not fight over females or territory, we are left to speculate about the origins of the scars...

 

 

The adult male is an interesting subject that I enjoyed watching each morning...

 

 



Here, an adolescent is snacking on the Paw Paw leaves near the den entrance...

 

 

It looks as though this kit has learned by the example of its' older sibling...

 

Part of the kits' education is learning where to find food, and to bring some of it to the den to eat later...

 

 

"Eating later" has a different meaning to a hungry beaver kit...

 

 

But he still learns to bring some groceries home...

 

 

The female has submerged and is rocking her body back and forth...

 

She finally appears with a limb to add to the pile near the den...

 

This has been an unusually long update.  I hope you found it as interesting to read as I did when photographing the beaver family.

 

Thank you for visiting.  Stay well, and come back soon.