Here you see Bernie in the late afternoon shadows earlier this week, eating his evening meal on top of what is becoming his new residence in one of our ponds:
I’m finding out that sharing your property with a claim-jumping American beaver can be hard on the possessive ego. As many of you know, Bernie arrived in late September and immediately started toppling trees and damming up a stream to create what now is a new body of water that we call Bernie’s Pond.
He arrived here alone and apparently is still alone. Which is good. The hope has been that he is one of those crotchety bachelor beavers who prefer to live alone and avoid ostentatious displays of destruction and construction. However, it is now clear that Bernie has decided to build a grand residence here. Which is not good. It’s neither neoclassical nor modern in design and, frankly, it’s an ugly mess at this point that makes me worry about what it portends:
I’m worried that Bernie might yearn for an eager beaver mate, many beaver kits, and (in my nightmares) maybe a beaver ballroom. If so, I’ll be trying to figure out how to convince the beaver division of ICE to deport Bernie and his kin to the North Woods – if I can overcome the guilt created by realizing that he’s just doing what evolutionary destiny says beavers must do, which is not inherently bad and can be beneficial in many situations.
In the meantime, while I wait for something along the lines of divine inspiration if not intervention, I’m at least learning a lot of interesting things about beavers. For example, look closely at the first photograph again:
Those “hand-paws” are one of the secrets to his kind’s “success” in avoiding extinction. Beavers have very dexterous, yet strong, hand-like front paws that they use for digging, building, carrying, foraging, eating, and grooming. Unlike their large, webbed hind feet used for swimming and sitting, their unwebbed forepaws allow for manipulation of objects and other complex tasks, including sitting upright on hind feet and tail on land and eating a vegetarian delicacy like we eat corn on the cob.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 22, 2025.)