It’s a crisp and deeply cold morning, the sun not yet risen above the Cairngorms. The Rothiemurchus forest is captive to a white hoar frost as we crunch along the path to Lochan Mor, commonly called the Lily Loch.
We’re on the beaver trail and my guide is Jonathan Willet, beaver project manager for the Cairngorms National Park Authority. After being hunted to extinction in Scotland in the 16th century, beavers have been reintroduced in various sites, and in the national park exactly a year ago. The winding rivers, lochs, marshlands and forests of the upper Spey are ideal habitat, though their famous reshaping of it means not everyone welcomes them. Consultations and careful management are integral to the reintroduction and, to date, the signs are good, with the 10 pairs thriving. So much so, that at least two have produced kits. One of these happy families are settled here, in the main public site in the national park, with a well-signed trail and information panels.
When we reach the loch, the sun is just appearing through the trees on the far side, casting gold across the ice. It must have frozen on a windy day because the surface is fractured and rippled, catching the light and colours of the dawning sky in a lacework pattern. Beavers can hold their breath for 15 minutes and Jonathan has seen their bubbles captured under the ice. They won’t get trapped, though, as they’re accustomed to the winters of Finland and Russia, and their chisel teeth are powerful enough to bite through. The signs are all around, in trees gnawed and lopped, long chips on the ground and the chewed reeds they eat.
But the family are out of sight today, cosied up in their muddy stick stack of a lodge on the far side of the loch, invisible unless you know what to look for. But the antics of the kit have been captured on camera since a first sighting in August, when it was a furry ball crawling over a parent’s tail.
Later videos show it getting bigger, with its own lengthening tail and bright eyes. It will stay home for a couple of years, gradually extending its range until it finds a mate and builds its own lodge. But it’ll be hard to leave the Lily Loch, which was the location for the beaver’s home in the 1988 TV adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Certainly no shortage of magic here.
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