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Yesterday afternoon, I was sitting in the tinyhouse-like structure next to the creek that we call the Nest with my laptop for writing, when I started noticing an odd, repetitive grunting noise, about 5-7 notes in a repeating pattern sort of like "oog, oog, oog" that would stop and start. I wondered if it might be a bird, but I had never heard anything like it before. When I started noticing rustling and snapping sounds in the woods, I went out on the front deck of the Nest to see if I could see what was making it. It didn't sound like any bird I'd ever heard, and with bears and wolverines around here, I'd like to know what I'm dealing with.
After a little while, hearing it repeating now and then, and ongoing ominous rustling, I saw a porcupine waddle out of the brush along the opposite bank of the creek. I scampered off to tell Orion, and when I came back, I realized there were two of them - one would make the grunt, grunt, grunt, and then the other, which I soon saw coming along the bank from the other direction, would reply with a higher-pitched "eek, eek, eek."
I thought they were a courting pair, but I looked it up online and porcupines do not mate in the spring, they mate in the fall. Babies are born in the spring and unlike most rodents, they are active and mobile almost immediately. Otherwise porcupines are completely solitary. So even though it looked big enough to be an adult, that squeakier one must have been a baby and the other one was Mom asking "Where did you go?" <3
(The only other time I've seen a pair of porcupines together was also about this time of year, along the side of the road, and I now realize that must have been a mom and a baby, too.)
After a little while, hearing it repeating now and then, and ongoing ominous rustling, I saw a porcupine waddle out of the brush along the opposite bank of the creek. I scampered off to tell Orion, and when I came back, I realized there were two of them - one would make the grunt, grunt, grunt, and then the other, which I soon saw coming along the bank from the other direction, would reply with a higher-pitched "eek, eek, eek."
I thought they were a courting pair, but I looked it up online and porcupines do not mate in the spring, they mate in the fall. Babies are born in the spring and unlike most rodents, they are active and mobile almost immediately. Otherwise porcupines are completely solitary. So even though it looked big enough to be an adult, that squeakier one must have been a baby and the other one was Mom asking "Where did you go?" <3
(The only other time I've seen a pair of porcupines together was also about this time of year, along the side of the road, and I now realize that must have been a mom and a baby, too.)