We share our home on this earth with a vast number of creatures large and small,* who occupy all sorts of ecological niches around us.
Beavers – that’s their handiwork above – favor streams and marshes, and are second only to man for their ability to manipulate the environment.** They’re mostly nocturnal animals, though you might see one swimming around a pond in the late afternoon. More info on these mammals here.
This fallen white birch was probably 20 feet from a marsh, and 30 feet of so from a stream.
* The Vedas, the most ancient of Hindu scriptures, describe 8.4 million species of life on the planet.
** per National Geographic