So apparently porcupines have conversations

[sholio]

Yesterday afternoon, I was sitting in the tinyhouse-like structure next to the creek that we call the Nest with my laptop for writing, when I started noticing an odd, repetitive grunting noise, about 5-7 notes in a repeating pattern sort of like "oog, oog, oog" that would stop and start. I wondered if it might be a bird, but I had never heard anything like it before. When I started noticing rustling and snapping sounds in the woods, I went out on the front deck of the Nest to see if I could see what was making it. It didn't sound like any bird I'd ever heard, and with bears and wolverines around here, I'd like to know what I'm dealing with.

After a little while, hearing it repeating now and then, and ongoing ominous rustling, I saw a porcupine waddle out of the brush along the opposite bank of the creek. I scampered off to tell Orion, and when I came back, I realized there were two of them - one would make the grunt, grunt, grunt, and then the other, which I soon saw coming along the bank from the other direction, would reply with a higher-pitched "eek, eek, eek."

I thought they were a courting pair, but I looked it up online and porcupines do not mate in the spring, they mate in the fall. Babies are born in the spring and unlike most rodents, they are active and mobile almost immediately. Otherwise porcupines are completely solitary. So even though it looked big enough to be an adult, that squeakier one must have been a baby and the other one was Mom asking "Where did you go?" <3

(The only other time I've seen a pair of porcupines together was also about this time of year, along the side of the road, and I now realize that must have been a mom and a baby, too.)

Comments

[philomytha]

I have never seen a porcupine, but that sounds adorable <3. Sometimes there are fox cubs in the park behind my house, but the main parent-child animal interactions I see are the magpies, there's a family of young ones in my garden that have recently left the nest but are still all hanging around it, all the siblings playing together in the trees, and they all have a very distinctive call like a rusty hinge squeaking, much more high-pitched and frequent than the adult birds, and every so often they beg for food from their parents instead of hunting for themselves, they're a lot of fun to watch.

[leesa_perrie]

So cute! And interesting too!

[sgatazmy]

Oh thats so cool to see!

[oracne]

Spiky baby!

[sovay]

I scampered off to tell Orion, and when I came back, I realized there were two of them - one would make the grunt, grunt, grunt, and then the other, which I soon saw coming along the bank from the other direction, would reply with a higher-pitched "eek, eek, eek."

Aw! I knew that porcupines could make adorable grunting noises because we used to call one of the noises Autolycus made over his food "porcupining," but I did not know that they participated in call-and-response.

[umadoshi]

Such darling critters! ^_^

[passingbuzzards]

So cute! I love hearing about your assorted coexisting wildlife. <3

[sheron]

Awww, cute!

[osprey_archer]

Oh, amazing! How wonderful to witness to porcupines having a conversation.

[lyr]

Aww! My life is better for knowing that.

[lilacsigil]

That's adorable!

We have a lot of possums in our back yard and possum joeys first live in the pouch then ride on their mother's back while small. So every now and then you see an adult female possum slogging along with a nearly-adult possum on her back making baby squeaks!

[timespirt]

They are so cute.

[lunabee34]

That is so adorable! I've only ever seen porcupines on TV.

[xparrot]

Awww so cute!! what silly not-that-little rodents ^^

[hamsterwoman]

I love your animal encounter stories! <3

And I also did not know that about porcupines vocalizing.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

How cute! I've never seen them in the wild.