Beaver slipping into the foliage on the sandbar in the middle of the river.

A walked out to the river shortly before sundown, and as I walked up to the river's edge, a beaver was climbing up the bank of the sandbar across from where I stood. By the time I got my camera up and focused, he was disappearing into the foliage that covers the sandbar. I stood on the bank, photographed the Sandias in full sunshine, and watched to see if the beaver would come back out of the foliage. About 5 minutes later, he reemerged with his mouth full of tamarisk cuttings. He slipped down the bank, into the river, and then swam about 100 yards down stream where he stopped along the bank and seemed to be eating the tamarisk. The sun went down, the mountains turned red, and he was in the same place with his tamarisk cuttings when I walked back out to the ditch bank and photographed the sunset.

The sandbar is in the shade in the middle of the photo. The bosque on the opposite bank of the Rio Grande is catching the tail edge of the light from the low sun.

Beaver sliding down the bank toward the water with his mouth full of tamarisk.

He paused for a second and I got a closer shot. I was surprised how much the beaver looks like a little bear.

Sliding into the river.

Swimming downstream with his tamarisk.

Sitting along the bank snacking on the tamarisk.

The Sandias turned hot pink in the sunset.

The sunset was partly cloudy and orange.