I'm going out with some people to count #beavers in the Mexican section of the San Pedro River for the next three days.
It's going to be cold. There will be photos.
Probably not photos of beavers, tho. They're elusive unless you have time to hang out and wait, which we won't. Seeing sign like burrows, cut stumps and dams is a perfectly good way to get a count.
I'm learning more than I ever expected about the San Pedro River and have been spending tons of time in the area. Part of its headwaters is the SW side of the Huachuca Mountains, where the #ContainerWall blocked some of its seasonal tributaries.
It flows northward from Mexico, east of the Huachuca, Whetstone, Rincon and Santa Catalina mountains and then into the Gila River. From there, it flows in to Phoenix where it is never heard from again.
This is the 2nd Annual Binational #Beaver Survey, as it turns out. (I had no idea what I was signing up for.) We're a group of about 18 people, mostly Mexicans, divided into teams, each of which will walk a reach of one of the San Pedro headwaters' tributaries to look for beaver sign.
As it turns out, I'm on the Los Alisos creek team. That tributary flows from the U.S. south through the Los Fresnos nature reserve. I got to know this area while photographing the removal of the container wall.
There is some minor chaos this evening as the teams try to work out transport logistics for tomorrow.
This will be fun, but cold. This is around 5,000' elevation and a cold front came through today. Luckily this stream is not very big so wading probably won't be necessary.
Back from the binational beaver survey. No #beavers, but saw active dams and lodges. They are crepuscular creatures here, and we were mostly out during the mid-day. If you set up a blind before dawn or early evening, you might see them.
I learned a ton of really cool stuff about beavers! I was fairly familiar with their ecological niche before, but seeing the difference in watersheds with and without beavers... it's massive.
Will post some photos and more info tomorrow.
US Customs officer: "What were you doing in Mexico today?"
Me: [enthusiastically]"Counting beavers! We're doing a binational beaver survey on the San Pedro River."
Guard: "Are you with that other guy?"
Me: "Probably! There were a few of us that came down from Tucson."
Guard: "Have a nice day."
I've always got a weird — but also true! — answer for the Customs people. I guess they figure no drug smuggler would bother making something like that up, so they wave me through.
@rachelschicksiegel
I'm currently reading #BeaverLand by Leila Philip
https://www.leilaphilip.com/beaverland-1
Been working on my story and photos from the beaver survey. Should have it done tomorrow, but in the meantime, here's a picture of #beaver poop. In case you were wondering what it looks like.
This was at a ranch in Sonora, about 15 miles south of the border, where the entire creek was not even a creek in the usual sense, but a string of marshes impounded behind cascading tiers of small beaver dams.
Los Alisos Creek in the Los Fresnos nature preserve in Sonora, Mexico, north of Cananea, where we were surveying for beavers last week. There are some fabulous sycamores (tree on right; the other is an ash tree) in that creek, but no beavers ☹️
This is a 10-vertical-image pano stitched in Lightroom. I wish I could upload a higher resolution shot, but the original is 700MB, so 🤷♂️
I'd like to come back dawn/dusk for a re-do in better light.
Here's another pano from Los Fresnos nature reserve, from the beaver survey, looking north toward the Huachuca Mountains in the U.S. This is a 13-shot pano.
The snowmelt from those mountains will feed streams that cross the border to Mexico, merge to form the San Pedro River and then flow back north into the U.S. The beavers in this area went the other way: from the San Pedro in AZ, south into the headwaters.
Rivers are real. Borders are fake.
I got my blog post about last week's #beaver survey in Mexico done. https://www.mikaljakubal.com/beaver-survey/
You should go read it because I succeeded where so many real writers before me failed miserably: I wrote a story about beavers *without using a single pun!*
@Mikal I loved your blog! ❤️
Sending the link to a good friend who just sent me a photo of a beaver in the wetlands near his house. 😁
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