Porcupine up a tree

A few days ago, my friend Ron Dudley wrote a post (click) about his encounter with a porcupine.  It reminded me of my own encounter with one a few years ago.  I really can’t remember if I had written about it at the time, but today is as good as any to mention it to you.

Ann and I were on our way to the bird blind at San Angelo State Park.  As we turned down the little lane leading to the place, Ann glanced to the right and exclaimed about an indistinctive blob in the fork of a tree.  I stopped the car and we gazed at it wondering what the heck it was.  It was only about 20 feet away.  I put the binoculars on it and lo and behold, I saw a face.  I told Ann, I think that it’s a porcupine.  I had never seen one close up before.

I put my 24-105 lens on the camera and got out of the car to approach it.  The fork of the tree was only about 5-6 feet from the ground.  That put the animal right at eye-level.  I took several shots of it then.  It was asleep or maybe just drowsing.  Anyway, it didn’t move but I felt that it was staring at me.  I put my hand out to “pet” it, then decided that I didn’t really want to disturb it.  An aside note, if you do pet a porcupine, don’t move your hand against the grain. 🙂

Here are a couple of images from that encounter.  My only disappointment was that the porcupine was back-lit as you can see, so I had trouble getting detail in the face.

Porcupine in tree

Porcupine Portrait

A year or so later, I came across this porcupine crossing the road.

Porcupine crossing road.