Last year, my dad and I embarked on Mount Baldy’s epic trail in Fernie, as well as going on a smaller hike at Fairy Creek Falls, which I shared pictures from in the blog post Mount Baldy & Fairy Creek Falls. This year in late April we hiked to the falls again, and it was an adventure with many photography opportunities I enjoyed. Here’s some of the highlights:
It would be interesting to get a tree faller’s interpretation on what the beaver’s strategy in falling this tree. Did the beaver give up because the tree was not going to fall in the direction the beaver was originally calculating on, or will the beaver return to finish the job? Why is there a larger chewed area above the lower deep cut? Which cut area was done first? According to this article, (https://www.nwf.org/Magazines/National-Wildlife/2015/AugSept/Animals/Beavers), the beavers avoid being crushed by cutting the tree to a point that a gust of wind can push over the tree. Also, beavers are skilled enough to get the majority of trees to fall in the direction that is advantageous to them (towards the water).
I agree! Seeing the motivation of the beaver attempting to fell the tree definitely raised some questions for me as well. One thing I’m curious about is, how do the beavers know when the tree is at the point to get blown over by wind?
Intuition is an ability our mainstream schooling curriculum tends to diminish. I know some people who can do math intuitively, but were not credited a pass mark until they could show the calculations to get the answer. They could not explain the “how”, as their mind did the math intuitively without any need for the calculations. Rational thinking does not take into account unknown variables. Many scientific discoveries came about by “mistakes”. Perhaps they were not mistakes, but resulted by intuitive forces.
Beautiful photos Hazel….
Thank you so much, Do! <3
It would be interesting to get a tree faller’s interpretation on what the beaver’s strategy in falling this tree. Did the beaver give up because the tree was not going to fall in the direction the beaver was originally calculating on, or will the beaver return to finish the job? Why is there a larger chewed area above the lower deep cut? Which cut area was done first? According to this article, (https://www.nwf.org/Magazines/National-Wildlife/2015/AugSept/Animals/Beavers), the beavers avoid being crushed by cutting the tree to a point that a gust of wind can push over the tree. Also, beavers are skilled enough to get the majority of trees to fall in the direction that is advantageous to them (towards the water).
I agree! Seeing the motivation of the beaver attempting to fell the tree definitely raised some questions for me as well. One thing I’m curious about is, how do the beavers know when the tree is at the point to get blown over by wind?
Intuition?
Perhaps!
Intuition is an ability our mainstream schooling curriculum tends to diminish. I know some people who can do math intuitively, but were not credited a pass mark until they could show the calculations to get the answer. They could not explain the “how”, as their mind did the math intuitively without any need for the calculations. Rational thinking does not take into account unknown variables. Many scientific discoveries came about by “mistakes”. Perhaps they were not mistakes, but resulted by intuitive forces.