northeast-flora-and-fauna

Here's an American Beaver I met on New Year's Day. (Like most of you, I spent New Year's Day looking to get some nature pictures. 😉) With a name like American Beaver, you've probably guessed that there are non-American beavers out there, and you'd be right. Eurasia has its own beavers, the aptly named Eurasian Beaver . Together they comprise the true beavers . (The beavers don't like to talk about the Mountain Beavers , which are really more closely related to squirrels.) Relationship confusion isn't limited to Mountain Beavers either; despite being the 2 most well known aquatic rodents in North America, and despite some visual similarities, they also aren't particularly closely related to Muskrats .  I met this beaver at the tail end of a fairly uneventful walk at Duke Island Park. As I was approaching the pond near the parking lot I saw something brown that I couldn't identify. A bush shouldn't have been that dark. My 1st (very distant) look ...