Beaver hauling wood, stores for the winter – willow branches in a small pond, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska. (Castor canadensis)
This guy stopped to stare at me for just a few seconds before he went about hauling his “catch” back to the lodge. The willow are a favored food of the beaver, and they’ll strip the bark off the saplings and store them for winter supper. And it takes a WHOLE lot of willow to feed a family of beaver all winter long.