Happy Sunday!
I was really hoping to be able to share some fantastic snowy owl photos with you from my recent trip to Alberta but things didn’t work out the way I’d hoped. I did see a couple of chickadees and a lot of geese headed north but I didn’t see any owls. The one thing I did spot was a spiky rodent sleeping in a tree so this week we’re going to have a look at the most under-rated rodent on the cuteness scale: the porcupine.
There is only one species of porcupine in Canada – the The North American porcupine and it can have over 30,000 quills! They are mostly solitary creatures though sometimes they pair up. A family group will likely consist of a mother and her offspring and is called a prickle. Yes, really!
North American porcupines spend quite a bit of time in trees where they sometimes den or forage for food. Porcupines eat vegetation such as grasses, leaves, seeds, tubers, and fruit but will also eat bark and insects.
The North American porcupine doesn’t hibernate but it may stay in its den during bad weather. A little known fact is that they are good swimmers as their hollow quills help keep them afloat.
In the Northwest Territories, Aboriginal cultures used porcupine quills to decorate birchbark baskets, wove quills into belts and sashes, and today many Aboriginal artists incorporate porcupine quills in their jewellery. To collect the quills they don’t kill the porcupine, they throw a towel or cloth over it and then pick the quills from the fabric. This allows the porcupine to live out it’s natural existence as it will grow more quills.
I’ve had the opportunity to meet a few porcupines in my time in the north and I have to say they are pretty cute in spite of their prickly nature.
Thanks for stopping in this week.