Country diary: beavers adjust to the first proper Highland winter in years

Aigas, Beauly, Inverness-shire They had to hurry to cache enough food before the ice took over, an underwater stash of nutritious bark kept fresh for winter snackingI think we'd almost forgotten about ice. A decade of mild winters had pressed delete in our recent memory banks, banished ice to the Winter Olympics or perhaps to nostalgia - something that happened back then. Well, this Highland winter was having none of it. It rampaged in with sharp teeth in November, bit hard and hasn't let go. It shows no sign of doing so yet.The beavers in the Aigas loch had to hurry to cache enough food before the ice took over, an underwater stash of birch and willow logs, the nutritious bark kept fresh for winter snacking. They don't hibernate. They still emerge in the long dark to forage where they can, labouring away at their evenly spaced breathing holes in the ice, gnawing at the rims every night to keep them open. Continue reading...