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Of course, I knew that beavers really did cut down trees. It's just that if I had ever thought about it all, it was to assume they were small trees. When I saw this tree stump, driving back to Riga last weekend, I first noted that it was very oddly cut, as though someone had gone round and round it with an axe. Several hundred yards down the road, I realise that it looked like images of trees cut down by beavers in our son's animated films. This weekend, we stopped on the way to the countryside to take a photograph and investigate further. It really is the work of a beaver, and in fact this tree, which was about eight inches across and probably 35 years old, was not the biggest one. It is covered in some sort of slimy coating, which I first thought was beaver-spit, but have now concluded was probably the tree continuing to circulate sap in a doomed attempt to encourage its leaves to unfurl.

About 30 yards beyond the stump, which was only ten yards from the road, I spotted the beaver's lodge, and started to look for a dry passage to somewhere where I could get a clear view of it. A rustling at my feet instantly froze me. The snake moved a couple of yards away, hid his front half behind a convenient tuft of grass, and put his head out far enough to inspect me with eye and flickering tongue. He evidently liked neither my look nor my scent and disappeared into the undergrowth a few seconds later. Although his inspection had given me time to identify the trademark yellow ears of the harmless grass snake, anyone who knows my deep seated, and totally irrational, phobia of snakes will be impressed that not only did I not scream, or freeze into a panicked statue, but I even went in search of it - all for this picture.