I had been chatting with the photographers I meet down at Juanita Bay and they kept telling me about the beavers that come out in the evenings. I could see the marks they had left so knew they were active but I had not had any luck seeing them. The timing of their foraging was not ideal since it matched quite well with my own dinner. With Nancy taking a trip, I decided to commit some time to trying to get some photos of them. I didn’t have to try too hard!
My first evening down at the bay, I had barely got there when I saw my first beaver. The head out of the water was easy to spot when the water was calm. It was slower than the otters which we see there often and noticeably larger. The lily pads are growing quickly at the moment and this is a snack of choice for the beavers. They don’t need to come ashore to eat and instead float around the inlet stuffing as many lily pads in to their mouths as they can.
I decided to move from the end of the trail around to another deck area in the hope that the beaver would come that way. Predicting the path of wildlife is a tricky game but this time I got lucky and it came right in to the spot I was standing. A couple with a screaming child approached the deck and I feared the beaver would scram but it didn’t seem to care about us at all. It was happy chewing on its dinner.
After a while, it swam across to the bank and disappeared – presumably to digest the huge amount it had just eaten. The question was how long would it be gone? The light was getting very nice but much later and the sun would be behind the trees. I thought we might have a long wait but it didn’t take long before it popped out again. Swimming around in front of us and then heading back across the bay meant I was very pleased with my luck.
We get a ton of flickers in our area. This species of woodpecker is very common and the spring is the time when they love to thrum on the gutters of the houses to mark out their territory. However, I have had a really hard time getting pictures of them. They are very easily spooked. We sometimes get them in the back yard poking around in the grass for food but if they even detect your movement, they are gone.
I recently had one back there and managed to get some shots through the windows of it. Double glazing is not ideal to shoot through but you get what you can. I also saw some in Juanita Bay Park where I was able to shoot through some branches to get a few more distant shots. I have yet to get one flying which is a shame since there is a flash of red from the underside of the wings that I think would look great to capture. I’ll keep trying!
