Castor Fiber

Am I writing a post about little wheels on furniture? Or about wheelie bags for air travel? Or the importance of roughage in the everyday diet?

Nope, I am attempting to avoid attracting the wrong sort of attention – castor is the French word for beaver and castor fiber is the Latin name for the Eurasian Beaver. ‘Nuff said on that topic.

When walking the dogs one morning, I spotted a tree stump that I hadn’t previously noticed. Whoever had been wielding the chainsaw was pretty messy, I thought. There were a lot of large chips around the roots and some strange marks on what was left of the trunk. Then I realised that the strange marks looked a lot like bite marks. A friend had told me that there had been beavers in the area years ago, but they had disappeared after a major flooding episode. I wonderered…

…so I took out my trusty iPhone and snapped a few shots.

Lots of chips lying around the stumps…

This piece was lying close by. They definitely look like teeth marks

This smaller, chewed branch was lying in the stream nearby

Curious, when I got home, I googled “beaver tree damage.” This site has some pictures which you’ll see are very much like mine. It seems that beavers have returned to Céreste. I would dearly love to see one! I’ll keep watching!