"MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR"

Muskrat - 11 Photos

The following two sets of photos were taken over 2 days in a period of approximately one week.

And in reverse order, let's start with the "war" part. A smaller muskrat entered a small cove in the pond where a large muskrat was eating. It was greeted with what I believe was aggression and chased into the open water. As you can see from Photo #1 to Photo #4 , teeth were bared by both parties, there was paw to paw contact and eventually the larger muskrat literally put the smaller one on its back in the water. This large muskrat then did a somewhat partial submerged victory swim, with the defeated quickly swimming to the far end of the pond.

I thought this might be a younger, less mature muskrat (perhaps even an offspring), trying to push its way into an adult's food source, particularly with the ensuing battle.

Now for the "make love" part. The very large muskrat was enjoying basking, scratching & feeding in a small inlet on this warm Spring evening several days later (Photo #5 & Photo #6). It suddenly stopped, sniffed the air (Photo #7), turned and in swam a smaller muskrat.

This time events were entirely different. They swam around each other in a mutual greeting and then well, I'll let Photo #8 through to Photo #10 tell the story. And yes, they did "get a room", that being the little sunlit inlet.

After a brief encounter where the male groomed the female, they swam briefly together (Photo #11) and then separated harmoniously, one going north, the other going south.

I can't say for certain that the first set of events was or wasn't an adult putting a youngster in its place or whether it was a show of unwanted mating but there was no doubt what the intention was in the latter. And hopefully, within the next month, there will be the pitter patter of little muskrat feet in the beaver lodge.

"WAR?"

PHOTO #1

PHOTO #2

PHOTO #3

PHOTO #4

"MAKE LOVE"

PHOTO #5

PHOTO #6

PHOTO #7

PHOTO #8

PHOTO #9

PHOTO #10

PHOTO #11