By the time I saw the flock of turkeys lifting off from the top of the hill on the way to the beaver dam, it was too late for photos. I wish I would have been quicker and could have captured those iridescent bronze feathers shining in the morning sunlight.

the sound of turkeys flying

The whole flock flew across the creek valley into the trees on the other side. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a single turkey take off from the ground to get airborne, but the sound is loud with the womp-womp-womp of their huge wings lifting their heavy bodies. A whole flock is a deafening sound.

The first time I heard that sound was on the logging trail up the mountain, and I couldn’t see what had caused the sound at first. Definitely brought up my heart rate for a little while until I saw the culprit.

a dam with no mud

The little engineers on Felkins creek started building a beaver dam a couple of weeks ago and since it hadn’t looked like rain in the forecast, I wasn’t in too much of a hurry to get some photos.

However, with rain scheduled for Sunday I figured I’d better make the time. Our beavers don’t build very sturdy dams and a good rain will probably wash it away.

Most farmers don’t like beavers and shoot them on site because of their habits of building dams, backing up water, and cutting down trees.

But the work they do is incredibly important for the natural environment. Their dams do back up water (when they’re built of stronger stuff than our poor little beavers manage). The ponds they make form entire ecosystems.

They don’t have any mud here to hold it all together, so they use rocks and sticks, and whatever else they can find. We do have a lot of sand, but that washes away quickly in a flood so I’ve never even see them bother with it. It’s probably hard to carry it through the water to even make it to the dam without the grains sliding through their crafty little paws.

beavers carry rocks

I have seen them carry rocks, though. They swim while holding the rock to their chest, which amazes me it doesn’t cause them to sink head first to the bottom of the creek. Granted, the bottom of the creek isn’t that far in most spots, though.

no lodge

It may be somewhere away from the creek sides where I walked, but there was no lodge in the dam that I could see. I did find the spot where they go up and down the bank to do the work, though.

an Osage orange

There are a few trees in the area, but I didn’t see the one that dropped this orange. There were lots of the fruit on the ground, though, so a tree was there somewhere. I was too busy trying to untangle myself from the briars to get a good look around.

I have several seeds in pots and will hopefully have some seedlings to plant out next year. When these trees get uprooted from storms or other tree-catastrophe, I gather the papery root bark to make a brilliant orange paint. But we don’t have a whole lot of the trees left as the ones on the creek edges get washed downstream.

a video

That’s about it for my wade up the creek to get pics and a good look at the beaver dam. Here’s a short video I made: