Icebreaker! Moment a beaver smashes through the frozen surface of a lake to grab a branch and then dives back underneath
- Michael Digout took photos of animals near his home in Saskatchewan, Canada
- Beavers live in a pond near his home and he took a video of surfacing through ice
- The animal slides around on the surface to get a branch before diving back in
This is the moment a hardy beaver breaks through an ice-covered pond to grab a branch and then disappears back into the freezing water.
Michael Digout has been taking pictures of the family of animals who live in a pond near his home in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, for the last few months.
Footage, posted on his Facebook on October 25, shows a female beaver surfacing through the ice on the pond.
A hardy beaver broke through an ice-covered pond in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
She slips about on the ice, struggling to get enough traction to pull her body out of the water, and eventually grabs hold of a branch with her front paw.
When the animal is finally standing on the ice, she yanks the branch free and puts it in her mouth.
She dives back through the hole in the ice, with her new possession clamped firmly between her jaws.
The video then shows the same beaver swimming below the ice before erupting through the top again.
The female beaver slips about on the ice, struggling to get enough traction to pull her body out of the water, and eventually grabs hold of a branch with her front paw
Mr Digout said he had noticed the ‘adult female had a daily routine of swimming around the pond and breaking the ice at certain spots’.
The beaver, which is Canada’s official symbol, circles for a few moments before diving back below the surface.
The large semi-aquatic mammals are herbivores and consume mostly tree bark, often chewing down trees for building material.
She dives back below the surface of the lake, through the hole which she emerged in the footage posted on October 25
They use this to make dams and lodges, gathering sticks, rocks, mud and other materials.
Beavers are considered to be a keystone species, meaning they have a disproportionately large effect on its natural environment due to their numbers.
The animals always live in a burrow with an underwater entrance, but ice forming during winter can restrict their movement.