Anytime we see a creature swimming in the creek that flows through our yard, wife and I scramble for the binoculars.

We always hope it’s a beaver for two years ago we began seeing beaver signs but we’ve never seen them. Invariably, no matter how hard we try to wish it into a beaver it always turns out to be a muskrat. A couple days ago we started seeing a potential beaver swimming around and hanging out at the creek’s edge but, alas, it, too, turned out to be a big muskrat.

Actually, it would take a mighty stretch of imagination to transform a muskrat into a beaver. Muskrats max out at about two feet long, half of which is tail and only weigh three or four pounds. An adult beaver is around three feet long and weighs 50 or more pounds. Not much similarity there.

Now there is a bunch of uncharacteristic muskrat activity going on. Like beaver, muskrats tend to be on the nocturnal side and we seldom see them. However, throughout much of the day at least two have been constantly swimming back and forth between two different areas of the creek and spending a lot of time up on a particular area of the bank. I don’t know if it’s the same two we keep seeing or if there are a number of them. I suspect the latter as sometimes they tolerate each other and other times there is aggression.

Muskrats live in family groups, ma, pa and the kids which can number up to 14 or so if mom has two or three litters over the spring and summer. They are highly territorial, laying claim to about 200 feet of shoreline which they aggressively defend.

Typically in early spring they do a switcharoo. Ma dumps the old man, the kids disperse and everyone reorganizes.  Vicious fights over territory and mates are common and often result in injury or death. I don’t know what all this recent daytime activity is about but it probably relates to territory, dispersal or something with the family hierarchy.

Other than being in the huge family of rodents, muskrats aren’t related to rats. In fact, they aren’t closely related to anything. Their nearest, yet still distant relatives are voles and lemmings. The “musk “part of their name comes from glands near the base of the tail that emit a musky odor to mark territory. The rat portion comes from their long, bare tail and overall resemblance to rats. The muskrat’s tail is flattened vertically, instead of horizontally like a beaver’s, and provides the primary locomotion for swimming. They also use their partially webbed hind feet but the tail does most of the work.

Muskrats are common throughout most of North America and are happy in just about any stream, marsh, pond or lake. While many aquatic species are declining due to human expansion destroying natural wetlands, muskrats find our canals, irrigation channels and sewage ponds just peachy, too. In streams, ponds and lakes they typically dig burrows into the banks with an underwater entrance. The burrow itself angles upward above the waterline and ends in a nest chamber with an air vent to the surface. During periods of snow this vent is plugged with vegetation that they change every day to prevent it from freezing in.  Marshes seldom have suitable water depth and shorelines for burrowing so here they build a downscaled, beaver-like lodge out of vegetation and mud. It, too, has an underwater entrance.

They don’t store food like beaver do. The main course meal is aquatic plants while hors d’oeuvres may be clams, frogs, crayfish and turtles. Folds of skin behind their front teeth allow them to snip off underwater vegetation without taking in water. A tolerance for carbon dioxide buildup allows them to stay underwater up to fifteen minutes.

Back when fur coats were socially acceptable, muskrat pelts were in high demand.
Europeans transplanted them to their homeland to get in on the action but in low lying areas like the Netherlands this turned out to be disastrous. Muskrats are now huge pests undermining their critical dikes and levees with their burrows. Muskrat revenge.

Carpe diem.

Larry Lyons writes a weekly outdoor column for Leader Publications. He can be reached at larrylyons@verizon.net