Porkie Den Tour
On this warm March morning, we headed out in search of our
prickly rodent friends. We ventured off
onto some state land, where we knew a porkie den existed, but weren’t sure if
we would actually find one.
We came across this beautiful den within a huge yellow birch tree- there was a lot of scat, and an old ‘trough’ trail, but no one was inside- we knew the critter had to be out and about somewhere.
We
continued on to an area where we saw some fresh sign- there were trees that
were all chewed on, hemlock branches blanketing the ground, along with hundreds
of cashew-shaped porcupine scat. We
looked in every hemlock in the area, and saw nothing. We were just about to leave the area when a
participant spotted the little guy up in a snag tree.
 |
| Can you see him WAAAAY up there? |
Well, that was odd- he’s not up there eating
anything, he must have been in his den and when he heard us climbed up for
safety. We went in to get a closer look
at him. Sure enough, the tree he was on
had a den in it- only it was completely hollowed out.
After admiring the critter for a while, we
left and came back to the Center. Later,
I had a group that came and I took them out to see him. He was no longer in the den tree, but in a
huge maple tree right next to it, way high up.
He just sat up there starting down at us. Such a unique and fun animal J
Licia Johnson, Naturalist
