Beaver Sculptures

This past weekend I rambled around Claiborne County and ventured to one of the neatest places in this area — the lake at the Port of Port Gibson. This lake has provided some of the best and funnest photos I've ever shot, from dragon flies to alligators to thousands of white lotus plants. The water in the lake was the highest I had ever seen it. The heron in the top picture was there to greet me. When I was leaving the lake, however, was the fun part. I passed by a bayou on my left and nearly every tree in the bayou looked like it had a white stripe at the base of it. I drove about 50 yards past it before I had my "wait a minute" moment. I backed up and walked down to the bayou and saw that nearly every tree at its base had been stripped of bark by beavers. Only one tree in the scores I saw gnawed on had been felled. A few had had serious attempts on felling them, but most had just been savored for the one layer of bark. I never could find the lodge these fellows called home, but it was something I had never seen in that quantity before. I'm glad I had my snake boots on because I never would have ventured down to the bayou without them on.