The BBC has released stunning footage from its Yellowstone series showing a beaver felling a cottonwood tree as it readies its dam for winter.
According to the narrator, beavers will fell hundreds of such trees in a year and the incredible footage captures exactly how they do it.
“The beaver doesn’t chew through the whole trunk, just enough to make the tree unstable. It then retreats and lets the wind do the rest,” says the narrator.
Once the tree is down, the beaver continues its carpentry by chopping the branches down into more manageable pieces and carries them down canals to its dam.
The footage is from the ‘Autumn’ episode released back in 2009. It explains that fall is the busiest time of year for beavers as they race against the coming winter when it won’t be as easy to repair their dam because the pond will freeze — making transporting materials virtually impossible.
The video contains a mix of underwater shots and above-ground shots as the busy beaver plugs the gaps in its dam.
Beavers use ponds as a natural protection from predators — but they aren’t the only creatures that benefit: moose come to feed on sodium-rich weeds that thrive in the shallow pond.
The beavers also stash food for the winter beneath the dam where they will be able to swim under the ice and retrieve it. But their hard work doesn’t go unnoticed by a young moose which the beaver tries to drive away by splashing its tail.
The video was published on the BBC Studio YouTube channel which has released a couple of other clips from its Yellowstone series, including a wolf’s secret encounter and a 40-minute video featuring all manner of Yellowstone wildlife.
Narrated by actor Peter Firth, the documentary series explores a full year in Yellowstone National Park, revealing how its wildlife survives in one of the planet’s most unforgiving wildernesses.
Each 50-minute instalment was followed by a ten-minute companion film, Yellowstone People, spotlighting park visitors and local contributors who supported the production. The series was a hit among British audiences, attracting peak audiences of over four million viewers.
Image credits: BBC