Urban Wetlands

There is a urban stream about 1-mile from our house that is dammed which allows the water to back up in a park to create a shallow pond or wetland. There are several advantages to this:

• It slows water down during rainstorms which can help prevent flash flooding inside of the city. The pond collects huge inputs of water and releases it slowly.
• Water being pooled in a wetland setting is cleaned of pollutants by the bacteria and plant growth.
• It becomes a haven for wildlife.

This particular one happens to be a haven for beavers. They have already cut several trees and are working on many others in the area as you can see in the photographs. I dont know why the parks folks are letting them go. Maybe trapping isnt something they want to do?

I appreciate the beavers being there because it gives me something interesting to spot and try to photograph. However, I recognize that having beavers falling trees on urban streams can present several problems. Problems like possibly backing up the stream into someones basement or cutting trees in a park that will take 50 years to replace.

There is really nothing more relaxing than sitting in a blind and watching ducks floating around. They eat when they want, sleep when they want and just lazily float around; seemingly as happy as can be.
This blue heron has someone on its leg that looks like a piece of electrical tape. I dont think its a tag, it looks like some kind of trash.

Switched from the 400 2.8 to the macro lens for this shot.

Beaver working on a new tree

Its hard to imagine a large rodent being able to cut huge trees like these. It's pretty remarkable if you take the time to consider it.