North American Porcupine

peek-a-boo...extremely belated congrats ashley ;)

Thanks Gerardo :)

Fantastic great series Congratulations Ashley :)

Thanks Mac!

Congratulations for your SOTD

Thank you Biswajit!

Congratulations for the SOTD! Nice Shots!

Thanks Jolly and bee!

Congratulations Ashley! Thanks for sharing the spotting. I have only seen these guys in northern states. I never thought of them being so far south. Thats great. Always a treat to see. :)

Congratulations Ashley. Beautiful series

Thanks Antonio :)

:-D Ashley my friend i'am happy :-) great SOTD,congrats and thanks for sharing such an amzing spotting page with us

I would imagine so, Hemma! Thanks Leanne :)

Congratulations Ashley! What a great spotting.

It must be such a terrifying feeling to know that you are going to be eaten alive!!

Yes they shed them, but I have never heard of one shedding them all at once. But there was also fur and blood along with the hundreds of quills, I'm pretty sure something ate it lol. Some predators have figured out if they roll the porcupine onto the belly, there is no quills there and that's how they kill them without being injured themselves!

or could it be also that they shed there quills?

I don't blame them! When I was in S Africa, we found two different areas with hundreds of quills on the ground, so something over there eats them!

Lions are afraid of porcupines.

Oh yes, lots! The area the first porcupine was in is also the same place a pair of great horned owls lives in. The owls nest their every year, and I see the porcupine their every time I go. I would assume the owls don't have a problem finding food, because they would have to be pretty desperate to go after a porcupine!

Are there raptors around in the daytime?

Thanks again Jared :) And thanks Hemma! Yes these guys come down from the trees at night, but during the day they sleep in the trees. There were just a lot of dried leaves on the ground so when I got under him to photograph him he woke up since I was kind of loud. And yes, owls are interesting birds, I love finding them though!

Great find Ashley.This is as surprising as Tom's Snowy owl,which I learned that ,is around in the daytime and found on the ground.i look for owls usually in the evenings .

Oh brilliant, sorry never saw the last shot, really impressive, congrats on an excellent spotting of the day!

Thanks Bas, Lisa, Larry, Lindsy, Stefania, and Jared :)
Jared, if you look at the last picture, they kind of stick out like a sore thumb in the winter! I had never even seen one before last month, I imagine they are impossible to find in the Summer when the trees have leaves, but it's easy in Winter :)