Two of them are a bit hard to see here, but their heads are just sticking up on each side of the one with the perch. They were having a feast and popping up through the ice at will. I'd seen their tracks occasionally through the winter, including the day after the beaver traps were pulled and I imagine they are the same three I saw in the lower section of the pond back in early December:
The otters weren't the only hunters on the prowl in the pond:
The only worry was that with the otters present, I wondered if the third-hand report of a beaver a couple days ago might have been a mistake. We thought there had been between four and six beavers last fall, but it was only a guess; we had never seen more than two at a time, so I was looking forward to confirming there were some beavers still here. A practical worry was that as unlikely as it was that they'd been all killed, the pond is six to eight inches lower than normal and yet the dam is gushing water, so has some maintenance issues after the winter: without beavers to fix it, we could lose a lot of water in the pond.
The ice is going fast, so I figured that if there were beavers left, they would be easy to see, so late in the afternoon I headed over toward the active winter lodge.
.I needn't have worried. I didn't even reach the ledge on the east shore before one spotted me before I spotted it and I heard that familiar splash. After some shots it ducked under the ice and headed toward the lodge. I followed and when I got there, a beaver was snacking at the bottom of the lodge. The first beaver I had nicknamed "Red":
for obvious reasons. The beaver at the lodge seemed darker and was also much more wary. I didn't get a good shot, but had the impression it was a second beaver. I will confirm that as I can. I knew they would likely be there, but even so, it made my day to see them.
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