Sorry it has been such a long time since our last update about Beavers. It will become clear as you read on that as the Beavers have been busy exploring their wider home it’s made following their movements trickier.
But first, a little recap.
We translocated a family of Beavers to our nature reserve at Loch Lomond at the end of January as part of plans to speed up their return to the wider area.
Soon after the release, we were able to share a blog with lots of video clips of the family settling in. Our second update in February contained the news that two of the kits (young Beavers) had sadly been predated (killed to eat) by Otters. We have continued to see Beaver activity on the cameras that are monitoring the release area but, as expected, the Beavers have been exploring over a wide area, often away from the Aber Burn and out into the Endrick catchment. We have even had reports of signs almost 10km away from the original release site.
As the size of the area that they have been exploring has increased, it has been increasingly difficult to keep track of their movements especially with them being captured on the cameras just a few times a month.
The last good video clips we have are from 9 May when the both the female and male were seen (separately) feeding on herbaceous vegetation on the Aber Burn.
This video was captured on a remote camera. It shows the female Beaver walking right to left and feeding on plants before entering the water.
As well as frequently checking the monitoring cameras that are in various locations, we have been surveying for signs within our nature reserve around once a month but keeping the frequency low to prevent disturbance to wetland breeding birds and other wildlife.
Our last survey covered most of the Endrick watercourse within the National Nature Reserve. Feeding signs were infrequent but at this time of year Beavers rely a lot less on woody vegetation, which makes it harder and harder to see where they have been feeding. Instead, they eat all the succulent herbaceous vegetation on offer, like grasses, sedges and flowering plants.
This video was captured on a remote camera. It shows the male Beaver moving right to left and feeding on plants then entering the water.
Although it was hard to see exactly where the Beavers were feeding now, we saw plenty of signs of regeneration where winter woody feeding had occurred (photo below). This was almost entirely seen on willow species.
We also saw a huge quantity of suitable habitat for Beavers across the NNR. This might explain why we didn’t see any signs of damming activity; most likely they don’t need to create any new habitat as there is already so much available for them. This abundance of good habitat has made it incredibly easy for them to disappear with little trace, unless you’re really looking closely.
With this in mind, we are keen to hear about any beaver signs that river users may spot. Please report any signs to beavers.lomond@rspb.org.uk. We will continue to try to keep track of them on the cameras as well as monitoring for signs/activity and provide further updates on this blog when we can.
Header image: Screengrab from the remote camera video of the male Beaver feeding on plants on 9 May.