Down by the river, I noticed that a new house has been added to the neighbourhood. A very attractive dome-style home has been prepared by an industrious builder. The builder, though busy as a beaver, is a smaller cousin, a muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus).
As befits the smaller size of its resident, the lodge is quite a bit less ambitious than that of a beaver, but still represents a substantial mound of materials. While beavers use tree branches to build their winter home, muskrats are cattail specialists. The lodge is constructed by first heaping cattails with mud and other plant matter to form a mound. Then, a burrow is built into the lodge from underwater. Muskrats depend on cattails for food as well as housing. Although they will eat crayfish and fish, muskrat diets are primarily made up of cattails and other vegetation.
You can compare this muskrat house to the beaver lodge shown in this post: At Work Under the Beaver Moon. Although close to the river edge, this lodge is surrounded by water. The water must be deep enough so that it will not freeze to the bottom during the winter, but shallow enough to allow the growth of cattails and other vegetation. Ideally, the water should be between 1 and 2 metres deep. Areas with a good supply of bulrushes, cattails, pondweeds, or sedges are preferred. Ahhh, home, sweet home.
Willow House Chronicles 
HM…we don’t get much in the way of a muskrat presence around our parts. Beavers, yes. But muskrats…well…I think I’ve seen a muskrat or two, but they seem to be keeping a pretty low profile. I wonder if they, like beavers, will build their dens/lodges into banks sometimes, rather than producing the mounded domed lodges like yours.
We have the opposite situation to Ellen — we see muskrats all the time, but have to do some searching to see a beaver. We’ll often sit near their homes and soon they’ll come swimming past. Often they’ll seem a little curious about us, swimming back and forth a few times or perching on a log and observing us, sometimes from only a few feet away. Last year during a canoe adventure, we saw a pair who was busily collecting duckweed — mouthful after mouthful.
Great pictures — we always love seeing muskrats, and your pictures of their homes gave us a great smile.
[…] more on muskrats, also see my November 17th post, Busy as a Beaver. You can also visit The Marvelous in Nature at Muskrat in our Meadow for more on muskrats and see a […]