No videos of Bernie and Bernice swimming today! Above, you see their unfinished lodge imbedded within ice and mostly covered by snow yesterday. Below, you’ll see their largest dam holding back most of a snow- and ice-topped pond yesterday.
B&B have been nowhere in sight for about a week; there are no beaver tracks in the snow on or around the pond, nor have there been the telltale signs of beaver activity in the form of newly-felled trees. There are, however, coyote tracks down there in the snow-topped ice. That’s an indication that B&B have not gone to Florida for the holidays, as well as a reminder of the winter dangers that our claim-jumping visitors undergo when protective water freezes.
Beavers don’t hibernate. The odds are that B&B are hunkered down in a “bank den.” That den likely would consist of one or more large tunnels with one or more underwater entrances. It’s probably in the bank of the island at the left of the first image and it’s most likely that it was created by the-ever-so-prudent Bernie when he arrived in September looking for a mate.
It's also likely that Bernie and his industrious mate collected many tender branches in the fall and early winter and stored them in the mud at the bottom of the pond as an underwater food cache for use in severe weather. If the weather warms up and the ice melts a little, we’ll probably see B&B back at work toppling trees and continuing the construction of a more substantial home for them and their sure-to-come little buck-toothed offspring.
In the meantime, B&B will find something to do underground; they’re on their honeymoon after all. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 14, 2025.)