THE TWEED FOUNDATION

A Visit to the Beaver Colonies at Alyth (by Blairgowrie) 12th March 2009

A Pictorial Essay

This essay was made possible through the kindness of the landowner, Mr. Paul Ramsay, who established Beavers on his land in 2002.

There are now two colonies, one on a stream that has been extensively ditched and straightened in the past and the other on a part-natural, part Curling-pond, lochan surrounded by forest. Both are enclosed by fences.

The Beavers on the stream were originally introduced to the wetland at its head but after a couple of years abandoned their dams there and moved downstream. They have extensively altered the stream by building a series of eight dams, five small and three large.

By contrast, the Beavers on the lochan are almost invisible. They have built a lodge and cut down a few trees but as It is not certain how many Beavers are in either colony (Beaver are difficult animals to see, only coming out at they have abundant water weed roots to feed on and naturally deep water, they have not felt the need to cut down trees for feeding or to build a dam to alter the level of the loch to suit them better.

It is not certain how many Beavers are in either colony (Beaver are difficult animals to see, only coming out at dusk and retiring to their lodges at dawn) but each probably numbers six to eight animals of different generations.

This series of photographs begins at the wetland where the Beaver were originally introduced and moves downstream. The total length of stream covered is about 2kms.

Download this photographic essay Alyth PowerPoint2 .pdf (8.1mb - it is a large file!)