Bird watching does not always pan out. We've had our fair share of bad bird outings that involved lots of looking and no finding. On days like that you really need to slow down, take a moment and enjoy all the other beautiful things around you.
Birding gets me out the door - but the untold adventure that always awaits keeps me going back. I never know what I'm going to see. The day after Christmas was no different. We went down to Bruneau Dunes State Park, just few miles south of us to do some birding. There were a lot of ducks and geese on a small patch of open water on the lake, sparrows flitted in the trees and magpies flew over head. Things were pretty quiet. We did the loop around the lake, not having much luck with birds but up ahead I saw this clump of leaves that didn't really look like a clump of leaves.
Well, it wasn't a clump of leaves it was a porcupine!
I'd never seen a porcupine in the wild that hadn't met an unfortunate end by a car. This guy was alive, and adorable! I stayed far away and took pictures of him and he moved around the tree.
We had more of a treat because on the other side of the lake when we were almost done with our hike we saw another one!
Two porcupines in a day! That seems pretty special to me. So, I may not always be watching birds, but if you keep your eyes open, it's amazing what you can find!
Cute pictures. I've only come across a live porcupine once. I was camping in the middle of the woods in one of those rustic sites with no electricity and it was pitch dark. I had just fallen asleep when this strange noise echoed around our camp. As it got closer, I got more and more terrified because I had never heard anything like it. Finally, my flashlight landed on this giant porcupine who was rounding the front of our tent. My fiancé and I had a good laugh about it afterwords when we were sure it wasn't going to shoot our tent or anything.
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