With the recent fabulous news of a beaver kit being born in the National Trust Wallington Beaver enclosure, we thought we’d share an essence of the wonderful wetland home the family are creating in this corner of Northumberland.
We’ve been delighted to host a collection of experiences in the Beaver Enclosure this summer, including daytime Beaver Enclosure Safaris and Dusk Beaver Safaris . With each visit we make into the enclosure, we notice small, intricate details in this new wetland ecosystem – crafted and adapted by the beavers. These minute interactions are complex, interwoven and dynamic, demonstrating the value of restoring this “ecosystem engineer” to our waterways.
Take a look through our collection of photos for a peek into the often unnoticed impacts of beavers, taken on 27th July 2024. Each photo has a description underneath!
Beavers create their own building materials for their architecture – including their lodges and dams. To do so they’ll coppice trees, remove the branches and intertwine them with mud and rocks – their dams are created in an effort to hold back and pool water where needed for safety.
The tell-tale sign of a beaver gnawed branch – a 45 degree angle cut with toothy grooves! Beaver teeth are super strong, and impregnated with iron to help cut through wood.
Four-banded Longhorn Beetle on Wild Angelica. The larvae of these beetles bore holes into logs and tree stumps, plenty of those in a beaver wetland!
A beautiful view of the burn running through the Beaver enclosure. Water is starting to pool in this upstream reach, located just beyond their ‘natal pool’.
Beaver-coppiced trees re-sprouting through the thick vegetation, their fallen trunks providing temporary bridges across the burn.
Meadowsweet -the Wallington beaver family certainly have a ‘Meadowsweet-tooth’ and have been creating channels to reach thickets of this fragment flower.
Common Spotted Orchid, one of the many beautiful, river-edge wildflowers that have returned following the reduction of grazing along the burn’s edge in the Beaver Enclosure.
Snack time! Rowan berries lie amongst branches ‘debarked’ by the Beavers – where they have been feasting in the safety of water. The ‘leftover’ sticks provide woody debris in the water, supporting freshwater invertebrates – which are a food base for Brown Trout and amphibians in the wetland.
A freshly coppiced Birch, the colour of the gnawed wood indicates how fresh the cut is. It’s always difficult not to walk away with pocketfuls of chippings! The tree will regrow with a more shrubby structure – great for nesting birds.
A beautiful carpet of Betony, a species which loves to grow in open woodland – something which Beavers are masters at creating.
On our daytime Beaver Enclosure Safaris, you get the opportunity to explore and learn more about the exceptional features and wetland habitats which the Wallington Beavers are crafting. Why not join us?