Wildlife

When I take Titan to the dog park, we frequently wander down to Moore's Creek, which happens to run right through Azalea Park.  Titan loves swimming, and he tends to play more after he's cooled off in the water, especially on hot summer days like the ones we've been having.

Titan and I have been going to the dog park for over two years now, but in all that time, I've never seen any notable wildlife.  Recently, there have been several reports of water moccasins and other snakes laying along the Rivanna Trail that goes by the area.  Even so, I haven't seen a single animal with my own eyes.

That is, until yesterday.  Titan was playing with Max in the shallow part of the creek when he suddenly got out of the water and ran further downstream.  Max eventually galloped back, but Titan was nowhere to be found and wasn't responding to his name.  I walked a little bit further down the trail to find him staring at a beaver, who was swimming back and forth in his water.  Eventually Titan decided to go in after him, but of course as soon as he hit the water, the beaver dived down with a loud THWAP! of his tail, never to resurface around us again.

Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me (shocker, I know).  But I think the aquatic rodent looked something like this:

Anyway, that was a pretty cool experience, cuz I'd never seen a beaver in the wild before.  So cool!