Increased beaver activity on the eastern shore of Caesar Pond

I went for a short pond prowl on Caesar Pond today. The colors have faded and the leaves are falling...along with the trees! I had noticed a lot of beaver activity on our eastern shoreline, near where we have our dock and boat. 

The beavers have expanded their tree felling activities to our side of the pond! They have dropped a red oak...just down the shore from our dock.

And a birch that you see in the water, as well as a girdled oak next to our neighbors' dock. That tree will fall with the next wind storm.

I am going to show some close-up photos of each of these trees separately, starting with the northern red oak that you see here. I was fascinated by the part of the stem that was debarked as it was laying in the water.

I paddled up alongside the tree for this photo. I hope to heck that the beavers make good use of as much of this tree as possible.

They seem to have a good food stash started at the end of it.

Here is a close-up of the food stash, or could it be the beginnings of a new lodge?

And a dining "table" further out! There are lots of these "tables" around the pond.

Getting back to the oak...you can see where the beaver has tried to chew through this part of the tree and stripped the log.

I was fascinated by the base of the tree where the beaver was successful in felling it.

Check out the cracks in the base due to the torque as it fell.

And, check out all the green bottle flies who are supping on what may be sugars in the wood? or moisture? I'm not sure, but fresh wood does tend to draw in the flies. There were lots of them!

Looking at the birch...I think the beaver is making good use of this tree.

I love seeing the gnaw marks...Lotsa good eats on this log!

Now for the second oak...The beaver really did a good job on this tree. Unfortunately, when it falls, it will get very close to the dock that is used by quite a few folks at the southeast end of the pond, where the snowmobile trail comes through.

But, wait! There's more! This oak just dropped further down the shore, on the other side of the dock from where the beaver munched tree currently is.

And...lastly...here is the active beaver lodge located along the northwest shore of the pond. Neighbor Carla often joins me on my pond prowling photo expeditions and shows the scale of the massive lodge you see here.

I would be remiss in not showing you one of our perpetrators of all the tree destruction!