Close Encounter with a Porcupine

We've never seen a porcupine in the daytime. They spend most of their lives in trees and our sightings have been pretty much limited to late night wildlife camera clips and roadkill (they are slow, dumb and don't reflect headlights).

I previously mentioned the trees that came down on the power lines. In surveying our property, we found that we had some downed trees as well. Two previously identified widow makers (semi-fallen trees that are hung up on other trees) are now down on the ground. If there had been a safe way to drop them before, I would have done it. The storm left us with two new widow makers, both of which seemed addressable.

My attempts to dislodge one failed. It's caught on a limb that it too high to cut off and I was unable to pull it off with a rope. It will require some further thought.

The second was on top of a small tree. It seemed like I could cut the small tree and bring it down. When I cut it, I discovered that vines had both trees entwined with a third. I cut the third and brought all three crashing down. They've now been added to one of my burn piles.

Back to the porcupine … we think that it might have lost it's home when the trees came down. It's also possible that the recent storm left it without a home.

We came face to face on the driveway when I was going to the mailbox. It didn't seem to notice me until I'd gone back to the house to knock on the window and get Kristen's attention. It headed across the lawn while I started taking pictures. It seemed so slow and fearless that I decided to go closer and get these pictures.

It seemed to be in a slow speed charge at this point so I retreated and gave it some space.

-JC-