A beaver living in Toronto's densely-populated Harbourfront area captured hearts across the city in January when the animal was spotted nonchalantly dragging tree branches along a busy sidewalk back to its lodge.

blogTO is now getting an up-close and personal look at this beaver thanks to a persistent photographer who has been tracking the majestic creature for the past two weeks.

Wildlife photographer Henry Huy is no stranger to animals that share urban spaces with humans, and was inspired by blogTO's recent coverage of the Harbourfront beaver to try and witness the animal for himself.

"I've been following the beaver at Harbourfront since seeing a TikTok video posted on blogTO," explains Huy, adding that he believes "persistence always pays off."

After carefully tracking the animal, Huy says he finally spotted the beaver last weekend.

"I saw the beaver come out for a swim after 5 p.m. [Friday], and it circled around near the boardwalk for about a minute before going back to the den somewhere underneath the boardwalk," explained Huy.

He waited another hour, but the beaver never approached the same stretch of sidewalk where it was seen dragging a tree branch in January.

However, Huy didn't give up, and returned to the area on Saturday for another attempt.

He says that the beaver did indeed come out for a swim at around 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, deducing "it did this to gather info about the surroundings and the amount of light."

Huy managed to get some spectacularly clear shots of the beaver during this swim, but the encounter was far from over.

It would only be another ten minutes after the beaver disappeared below a section of the boardwalk before the animal gave Huy a golden opportunity, strolling right up to the sidewalk.

"My lucky moment had arrived," said Huy. "The beaver walked slowly to a small tree branch area on the sidewalk and started chopping down one of the branches. It took the beaver less than five minutes to finish taking down the branch."

Throughout the encounter, Huy says he just "kept pressing the camera shutter."

"I never thought I would see a beaver this up-close and chopping down a tree like this. Most of the time, the beaver does this very early in the morning or at night when most of us are sleeping."

Huy noted that this particular beaver seemed very active and unbothered by the presence of human spectators.

"There were five or six people watching it in action and I was the only one with a camera to record the beaver in action."

This beaver isn't the only aquatic mammal Huy has photographed in recent weeks. Earlier this year, Huy shared photographs of an otter and muskrat in High Park's Grenadier Pond.