Kingsport, Tennessee’s city-run park has served as an ideal setting for North America’s largest rodent to work and thrive.
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A juvenile beaver eats the flower from the spatterdock (cow lily) that grows in the lake.
One of the more elusive animals that call Kingsport, Tennessee’s Bays Mountain Park home is the American beaver, the largest rodent in North America. You can see many signs that they are there, but you rarely see them unless you are at the park near dusk or dawn due to their nocturnal work habits. I think I have only seen one during the daytime. It was just swimming across the lake for some reason in the middle of the day.
Jay Huron
This beaver was stunned after falling down a cliffside near the lake onto the entry-road area. Park staff called a local rehabber to capture it for a health evaluation.
A big draw for me photographing the beavers is that it was something I hadn’t photographed before. It’s also a challenge due to the timing of their activity. Most of the time the beavers are working the park is closed. The first beaver I got to photograph was on an evening canoe and kayak event on the lake that ran past dusk. We paddled over to the large beaver lodge you can see in some of these photos. We then sat quietly and watched and listened for movement and eventually, we were rewarded. I’ve done that several times now and I was generally able to see at least one beaver. On another evening I got to watch a very young beaver eating a lily pad stalk. So cute!
One of the other times I encountered a beaver was when I was there early in the morning after camping out while raising the wolf puppies. (See Nov/Dec, 2020.)
I don’t sleep well in a tent, so I was up before dawn and decided to take a hike to catch the sunrise at what I thought would be a good spot. As I waited, a curious beaver swam towards me through the fiery steam rising off the lake, which was lit by the rising sun. We had a few moments looking at each other and then the beaver dove smoothly under the water and probably headed back to the lodge for a snooze after working through the night. It was a truly wonderful experience. The beaver must have been okay with it too, because beavers that are startled or aggravated will slap their tails when they dive and make a big pop and splash.
Beaver Highways
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Aerial view of the man-made dam that creates the 44-acre lake where the beavers reside. This lake was created to be the water source for Kingsport before the city outgrew it.
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Aerial view of the oldest beaver lodge on the lake shows the radiating “beaver highways” where the beavers create a path through the water shield.
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A close-up, ground-level view of the same beaver lodge as the aerial to the left. The lighter yellowish limbs and branches are freshly added and mean the lodge is still in use.
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A beaver swims toward the photographer in the early-morning steam rising off the lake.
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Chips are created by a beaver chewing into a tree trunk.
The “highways” you see in some of the photos are mostly cut through watershield and also some lily pads. The beavers create these highways by just traveling the same path through the plants and maybe a bit of chewing. They like to eat the lily pad stalks but I’m not sure the watershield is to their taste due to it being covered with a clear jelly on the underside of the leaves and stems.
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A stubborn tree. Two cuts and it still didn’t fall!
From what I have found online, searching for other photos of this type, these highways are a unique feature of this specific habitat. I couldn’t find any other photos that showed this network of connecting pathways in the aquatic vegetation.
These beavers were introduced to the park’s man-made lake, and while they have thrived in it, the typical habitat for beavers is near streams and rivers (sometimes at the edge of large lakes as at Bays Mountain) which they dam up to create a pond in which they will build their lodge.
This in turn creates a wetland, pond or marsh area where other plants and animals thrive, and creates resilience against flood and drought. It also allows the beavers to move the sticks and logs that they cut down more easily by floating them rather than dragging them across the land. The beavers at the park have found the streams that feed the lake and have done their job of daming those up, which has created some extra wetland and pond areas near the ends of the lake.
The story above first appeared in our March / April 2024 issue. For more like it subscribe today or log in with your active BRC+ Membership. Thank you for your support!