Why do great birds show up on lousy days of rainy, overcast skies? A flock of perhaps 30 of these Bohemian waxwings has been hanging out at school this week. They flock in the huge sugar maple at the top of the parking lot, like 50 feet away and in the top of the 50 ft. tall tree. My bug camera could barely zoom in on them enough. The wind was enough to keep focus poor. The lighting was simply awful. My tripod was at home. But I knew I had to capture them for documentation.
Bohemian Waxwing (Bombycilla garrulus)
Bohemian waxwings have a conservation rank of S3N in Vermont and G5 globally. Basically that means they are uncommon and may be in danger of extirpation. I don't know what the N means, but it could mean non-breeding. Vermont is not their breeding area. Their uncommon status was all it took to get instant verification at iNaturalist.
Bohemian Waxwing (Bombycilla garrulus)
I have seen them at school one other year, so it was exciting to see them again. I took five minutes from one math class to show photos of the species and to explain the significance of seeing them. I asked the students to help with observations and identification.
There are many birches in there, but it's on a tamarack.
This is my lucky week: the theme for this week's Photo Sunday is tree. I've got a few. Thousand. When I drove in the driveway on Sunday I saw the porcupine again but from this side of the house, it was closer. The photo makes it seem as if it is in the woods. It isn't. There is a small field behind the porcupine and the tamarack tree. I zoomed iPhone in as much as possible (10x) and got this shot above.
You can tell it's on a tamarack by all of the cones.
I went in the house and got my tripod, bug camera and dog and went back to the driveway and settled in for a long photo shoot. That didn't happen. It was too cold and the wind began to blow down the mountainside. I never even set up the tripod. Also, the porcupine did not move. I took over 67 shoots and they are all the same (they only differ in zoomosity). At one point, trying to get the porcupine to move, I yelled, "Hey, porkie! Move a little. Show me your face!" Well, that got Lucy all excited and she ran to the tree and told the porkie the same thing in doggerel. I have learned that porcupines cannot see very well but their hearing and smell are very good. So it obviously ignored us. Kids at school, animals at home, now porcupines in the wild—they all ignore what they don't want to hear.
Same pose, just more zoom. What looked to me like an eye or nose was simply a cone.
These porcupines are actually becoming boring. They move so little. They behave the same each time I see them. I need to learn more about them to see if I can find something to observe or watch for.
Cinnamon Monkeying Around Bread dough going into fridge overnight to rise
Soft outside, buttery and cinnamony outside
There's always school, isn't there; always there are lessons to be honed for the next day. But there are also chores, puzzles to do, reading about pies and maternal boundaries, too much TV to binge, and resting the knees. On top of the usual, I've started my Christmas baking tests. Yesterday I did King Arthur Flour's Monkeying Around Bread. It's a single layer monkey bread made with a simple enriched dough with a cinnamon sugar coating. We are considering baking at school, and this is one recipe for consideration. Each child can make her own batch and take it home.
Nelly loves one of her new toys so much that she managed to push it into a back corner that I could not reach. But Amelia came yesterday and snagged it out so that Nelly is happily back in business.
00:31
Amelia also fixed the garage door openers so I don't have to worry about animals in the garage during the day. The oil tank in the garage is also protected from the wind now. Except a big flower pot fell on the feeding pipe and had to be retrieved—the copper pipe was not damaged.
In particular, these are the animals I want out of the garage:
The Porcupine
This is not the photo I posted earlier this week. It's the same porkie, just another shot. I couldn't decide which of the two shots was best. They were both handheld shots. The wind and rain kept slamming the door on me, so the tripod (which I did get out of the car and into the house) would not have worked. But somehow, on that dark day, I managed to get the settings right for the light and held the camera steady enough for better shots. I can imagine how good they would been with a tripod. The porcupines have been quiet this week and I have only seen one. I will drive up to the trees in a couple days to see if they are okay or not (Lucy has given no indications that one fell out of the tree, so all should be well).
I've missed some awesome shots this week: a manure spreader in a whiteout, a flock of starlings, candid dog and cat shots. Starlings are rare here and I get excited to see them. They may not be native, may even be invasive, but they are so intelligent and beautifully patterned that I enjoy them greatly.
I came home to see Betsy in the new cat tree. I woke her up and got this shot:
Betsy
Even though it has been wicked busy and tiring, these have been happy non-depressed days. Classes have been going well. The little bitty kids and I are learning about snowflakes. We also read a Hanukkah book and played dreidel. My snowflake catcher has arrived from Vermont Snowflakes, so we will capture some and attempt to photograph them. Two other classes are doing rates. One class in a consumer orientation, the other in a pure mathematics orientation. There are only two full weeks of classes left before break. The two weeks are followed by two and a half days of kids frenzied by Christmas (the little ones already are) and all of the activities.
If I had doubts about the porcupine staying overnight in the garage, they are gone now. I pulled into the garage after school this afternoon and upon getting out of the car and turning, which takes a long time because of my knees, I saw a porcupine waddling and hopping towards the woods as quickly as possible. And that ain't very quick!
I can't close the garage door when I leave in the morning because the batteries on the remote are dead. I have the batteries but I can't figure out how to put them into the remote and I can't sync the remotes to the door opener without help. Until that comes, I'm sort of stuck here hosting porcupines in the garage (which is where trash is kept to keep it safe from bears … and now porcupines).
Leaving the garage after I pulled in this afternoon.
I regret not having the presence of mind to shoot video of the porcupine racing into the woods. It was one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time. It was an exaggerated waddle and roll with hops off of the ground in between.
If only they would appear on clear, sunny days! It seems to always be hazy and wet when they pop up. I would give them names except I can't tell them apart unless they appear together. I have noticed that the first thing Lucy does when she leaves the house is check to see if there are porcupines in any of the trees. What a world!
Porcupine as seen from backdoor Barton Mountain ridgeline in the back
What a day today. The roads are so iced that the town plow has chained up while it salts the road. Nothing to do but stay inside and do … something.
I'm still keeping an eye on the porcupines. They don't appear every day. It's more like every third day, so I'm wondering what else they are eating. Luckily, I can see them from the windows in the back mudroom. Unfortunately, my tripod is in the car and it won't be until today that I can get it out. So all of these shots are handheld. I did make a tripod of my elbows on my walker but it wasn't enough for the amount of digital zoom I used.
Digital zoom; eye is visible despite snow and handheld shake
I've learned more about porcupines. Their bellies are not quilled and are very soft and vulnerable. In the photo below, you can see that. When they sleep, their head faces a back wall of the den, and their tail faces the entrance. They swing their tail at predators and the quills release upon contact. So they are pretty invulnerable but they still have a couple predators, predominately the dreaded fisher cat.
Vermont had to reintroduce fishers because they are so reviled that they had been extirpated a hundred or so years ago. But they are back and as vicious as ever. And they love porcupines. The balance of porcupines in the wild is back in check now because of the fishers.
Lucy loves porcupine days. She wants outside constantly and only comes in for warming. She knows where the den is under the barn and she tracks their movements all day. Porcupines are supposed to be nocturnal, and I know mine are out and about at night, but they are active in the day, also. When they are up a tree, Lucy can even spot them!
Lucy is watching the porcupine shown above in the tree.
Porcupines do not clean the scat out from their den. The scat can become so deep that it spills out of the den. No one knows why.
Amelia came by on Thanksgiving night to drop off a dinner for me, so I opened the garage doors and turned on the outside light. She turned off the lights and closed the doors when she left. In the morning, Lucy went nuts. She excitedly ranged all over the garage, and even thoroughly scanned the rafters of the garage. That's when I became nervous. She explored the garage without hackles so I knew there was not a danger like bear. Sort of. Lucy's definition of danger and mine differ, so I asked her to come back in before she found an animal. I kept the doors open so that whatever it was could leave. I am very fortunate that Lucy has never once attacked another animal. She simply alerts with deafening barking and shows me where they are.
Yesterday morning I went out to the garage and found a lot of scat lined across the garage doors … well it was actually everywhere but most prominent in front of the doors. I found a footprint, too. Neither has been identified but because of the porcupine activity, I strongly suspect that I had inadvertently trapped on in the garage overnight. The scat has the cashew-shape of porcupine. The print is the right size for porcupine but is ill-defined. I have perennial problems with red squirrels trying to move into the attic every winter, so the scat could be theirs, also. Red squirrels are not nocturnal, though.
I had my measuring tape with me, but it did not work!
The scat was everywhere.
One poor print.
We had a wonderfully odd Thanksgiving. I hope you did, also.
Snow showers today. I caught one earlier and because it is such a quiet baking day, I played with the shots.
The two surviving cottonwoods at the edge of the bog and orchard.
Flakes of snow.
I've spent some time reading to see how much damage the porcupines are going to create on the tamaracks. Foresters say they are awful pests. Naturalists note that the tamarack inner bark is a favorite of porkies. From "Tamarack Time" at Flandrum Hill:
The inner bark of tamaracks is edible and has many medicinal uses among Native Americans, among them, treating burns, wounds, inflammations and headaches. It’s also a favourite of porcupines.
Tamarack habitats are used by a variety of wildlife species. It provides cover from summer heat for bear, deer and moose, but is browsed by relatively few species. Snowshoe hares feed on twigs and bark, and porcupines feed on the inner bark. Spruce grouse and sharp-tailed grouse eat the needles and buds. Ospreys nest in the dead trees. Red squirrels cut and store the cones. Mice and voles eat large numbers of the seeds off the ground.
I checked all of my archives for photos I may have captured of all of the "pests" of tamarack. I have not found one. But I did possibly find the cocoon of Hyalophora columbia, a rare silkmoth that loves tamaracks. I brought the cocoon inside to raise, but it never developed. But my daughter, Amelia, did find an adult in nearby Brownington at school. That was such an exciting day for both of us! It was also an extremely frustrating day since I have been searching for these for 20 years and she found one in her first bug hunting year.
Columbia Silkmoth (Hyalophora columbia)
I have also documented the Larch Tolype (Tolype laricis), whose host is tamarack. It's a beautiful fuzzy gray moth with a brillo-type haircut. It was my husband's favorite moth each season.
Larch Tolype - Hodges#7673 (Tolype laricis)
Larch Tolype - Hodges#7673 (Tolype laricis)
I know that if I called Vermont Fish & Wildlife there would be no advice. It is illegal to move any wildlife to anywhere at all (even skunks). It is illegal to harass wildlife in any way (and who would want to?). And while it may be legal for me to shoot them, I won't.
My conclusion is that I will leave the porkies alone. I will stop resenting them. I will learn to appreciate their place in my biosphere. If they kill one or two tamaracks (they are chewing on two that I know of), I'll get over it. I will hope to see an osprey nest in a dead tamarack here. I will think of the grouse, deer, moose, mice and voles, and snowshoe hares that use the tamaracks. My snowshoe hare tracks, in fact, are always in the same area near them. I will keep track of the progression of tree gnawing. I have an entire new research project.
How high will a porcupine go?
They love the main stem inner bark the most.
I still don't know how they got out on those small branches on the left. I read that many die from falling off trees.
I learned today that the two porcupines that I see are most likely denning together for the winter under the barn. I remembered that they love salt. I remembered when my foot slipped into an underground den of theirs up above the house in the cliffs and came out covered in porcupine poo.
I'm going to ask Amelia to get me a tamarack shoot so that we can plant it indoors as the USFS author did.
Tamaracks can live up to 400 years. My attitude towards porcupines is irrelevant, trivial, compared to that.
Here is a YouTube video of a porcupine eating tamarack inner bark.
When I let Lucy out after supper, just at dusk, I looked up at my favorite tamarack tree as I always do and said, "Aww, there are two bird nests from the summer up there." But then I stopped and said, "No! Those nests were not there yesterday or last week or this morning! It's the porcupines!" And I groaned.
Just after the tamaracks lost their needles (they are a deciduous conifer tree), I saw the evidence of my Barn Porcupine damaging the tree. I showed it to my kids and they chuckled.
Porcupines ate the bark off the left branch.
The kids didn't know what they were looking at, so I pointed it out to them:
But even I was questioning if it was porkies eating the bark because it isn't the strongest branch and the damage was way out at the end—where the tenderest bark is. Porcupines can be huge like the one that is living under my barn. In the top photo, my Barn Porcupine is on the right on the trunk of the tree and presumably his smaller lady love, who may or may not be under the barn living with him, is on the left here in the photo:
Here is Lady Porcupine
This was a handheld shot with my bug camera (I have lent Amelia my huge camera with my long lens and think I have to get it back now). I used digital zoom while I braced my arms on my walker while sitting on a stool in the laundry room with the back door open heating the entire outdoors with the price of oil what it is.
I'm going to call Fish & Wildlife for advice about my trees. I have over 100 tamaracks that my husband carefully tended for me because I love them so. Plus the apple orchard, which porcupines also love. Plus the sugar maples that they love that we used to tap.
A porcupine's only natural enemy is a fisher cat. Fisher cats are vicious wolverine-type furry animals that will attack for no reason at all and are legend for killing house cats and small dogs. I have had them trying to get into my house in the summer through open windows. I close all first floor windows at night in the summer now. But I haven't seen a fisher here for years. I don't want them back. And I don't want the porcupines to kill my trees. And I don't want them shot.
The same tamarack in 2013. It was much smaller. In November they turn this brilliant orange and are seen blazing on mountain sides everywhere here. The boulder is Pansy Rock where Angel Pansy, a disabled cat, was buried by my husband.
The interior of the house was glowing pink, so Lucy and I went outside to relax after an awful day at school. It was the kind of day when you ask yourself why you are doing this job. Within five minutes, the sky changed so quickly that it was breathtaking. It was so centering that it healed me. But then, Lucy checked the porcupine that is living under the barn and all hell broke out. She never attacks animals, but she does vigorously warn me with an alarming bark and sometimes, like tonight, with her hackles up. I knew what she was excited about, so I praised her vigilance and told her it was fine. I wish I had gotten a photo of her happy face while she told me about the intruder. The porky this year is simply huge. It's so huge I'm surprised it can even walk.
45 seconds later
To the left: the flume of May Pond Brook
To the right, seeing Lowell Range through the trees
Buddy and Oscar will follow John to the end of the earth.
An unidentified fungus.
Porcupine quills at the bottom of the cliffs. John thinks the porkie may have fallen off of the cliff (and survived) because of the number of quills that were there.
The very bottom of the cliffs.
Oscar poses for the camera.
Scarlet Waxy Cap Mushroom (Hygrophorous coccineus)
Another unidentified fungus.
Up the tree!
Insulators
The transformer is nearly eye level because the slope of the mountainside is so steep under the cliffs.
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