Beavers pool effort in watery DIY

Vale of Strathmore, Perthshire Dams are constantly being repaired and rebuilt to create canals where the beavers can move safely undetected

The dipper bobbing along the top of the dam looks oddly smart in this drunken landscape, his clean white bib reflected in the water below. All around is chaos. The beavers have felled most of the bankside birch, sycamore and other trees they like to eat and use for their dams.

Less tasty species, like larch, left marooned in the flood, have simply toppled over, exposing great root bulbs, which, now, are slowly rotting. Fresh shoots sprout from a recently gnawed willow; the cartoonish stump is pointed, as if it has been put through a giant pencil sharpener.