A Washout and Some Work on a Canal

I came across this young dam on the fourth of August and watched its progress over the next three months, but don't seem to have taken any photographs of it until the 9th of November, by which time some heavy rain had washed it about thirty metres downstream from its original site.

That is how it was as a young dam and it grew considerably, but then came the rains of October and I was surprised to find this chunk of dam some way downstream of its original site. Perhaps with more timber struts it would have survived? What will the beavers do now? They may feel that it will be enough to link the dam to the bank where it is now. Will they think it necessary to build a new dam in the original place?

By the time of its washing away the dam had developed extensions on the bank of the ditch and it was just the plug that was pushed downstream

This canal has had some work done on it and, with the recent rains, it is becoming an ever more convincing canal, extending the beavers' penetration of the willow wood.

A snipe flew up as I walked across the wetland just to the left of the picture below. It was the first I had seen for a while. I haven't seen any woodcock around for a while, but frost and some wind from the East  should bring them across the North Sea to spend the winter with us.