Bike Path Beaver

Friday evening after some errands, Mark and I went for a walk along the Willamette River.  Thursday, Mark had been walking along the Delta Ponds Bike Path and had seen beavers, and he wanted to see some more.

I brought along my camera, not realizing that it would be fairly dark by the time we got to the waterways.  As we were walking toward a car dealership from the Valley River Center, Mark showed me the gnawed roots of a tree where he'd seen a beaver the previous night.  A few steps later, he spotted a wake in the water.  He pointed out where a very large, log-shaped shadow swam in a pond-like side channel of the Willamette. We must have gotten too close, because there was an explosion of water as the beaver dove.

We spent about a half hour or so, creeping along the sides of the bike path, looking at shadowy forms of ducks, nutria, and geese.  We stopped at a spillway.  Water surged from the Willamette in to the Delta Ponds wetlands, which was surprising, because usually the water flows the other way.

We turned back, and around here, Mark noticed a lump by a tree.  "Is that an animal or a stump?"

I looked.  "I think it's a stump."

It was a beaver.

A really big beaver.  Chewing on a very small log.

 Mark turned on his cell phone light, and I hunched down about eight feet away from the beaver and attempted to take its picture. 

It gnawed on the bark, then looked at me and took a few steps toward me.  In my mind, John Cleese as Tim the Enchanter was saying, "It's got teeth like a... it can jump like... Look at the bones, man!" 

The beaver took a few more slow, lumbering steps toward me.  It looked like it weighed forty pounds.

"I'll just move reeeeally slowly."  I stood and took a few side steps back to the bike path. 

The beaver waddled over to where I had been, and continued to a path along the riverbank to the water.