Thursday 2 April 2015

Porcupine sighting: a video!

This is her den area
porcupine Oct. 2012

She snuck away in here
I figured if I toddled over here enough I'd spot her feeding on a sunny spring day. (We tend to have females critters around here. I don't know for sure!)
It's so sad seeing them as road kill.
Slow moving, quiet critters.

They tell me that in winter they don't hibernate so much as estivate (sort of doze). In addition, they wake up, from time-to-time, to eat within 100m of their burrows. I found such a site.
Lots of trees with bark nicely peeled off, I wrote about this before. It's a big forest, and taking the bark like this, it won't harm the forest integrity. It might even do some pruning, allowing smaller trees to get more sun.

I spotted one in Oct. 2012, as well.

Anyway, while I don't want to bore you, I found it fascinating watching her shimmy back down the tree. She froze, at first, then decided to get out of Dodge.
It's densely forested
she's been after bark


Porcupine from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.
I knew there was a porcupine in here. I figured she would be out this day, a little bit warmer, and the sun shining. She climbed down and ambled into her den.

7 comments:

eileeninmd said...

Cool! I've never seen a porcupine! Great shots and video! Have a great day!

EG CameraGirl said...

Porcupines are pretty shy critters so what a treat for you to photograph one!

William Kendall said...

They are quite a critter. I've seen them a couple of times in the woods or meadows.

Sallie (FullTime-Life) said...

You are an amazing wildlife scout and photographer. They are cute old pokey guys (they seem like they must have been born old); we used to see them occasionally when we went campting out west. Never here in Florida.

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari OM
Never thought of them as climbing critters... what star footage!!! YAM xx

Red said...

The dens I've found here are usually old beaver tunnels into a bank.

Gill - That British Woman said...

never seen one other than when they are road kill.