Comments on: Hemlock for lunch

By: Tracking the porcupine « the Marvelous in nature

Tracking the porcupine « the Marvelous in nature — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:40:51 +0000

[...] my poking around, I turned up this video of a porcupine feeding on hemlock twigs, taken and posted by Dave at Via Negativa last winter. [...]

By: David Harmon

David Harmon — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:51:42 +0000

Oh, and for the last line of your original, they clearly smell like… YEOWW! :-)

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 03:54:04 +0000

suzanne – Really? I am so glad he found a good home with you, then. Best blog post I ever wrote. (And now I’m kicking myself that i didn’t put that in the roundup of “20 Things About Via Negativa” for my fifth blog-day last month.)

David – Well, it’s really only a matter of time before the woolly adelgid destroys all the hemlocks on the mountain – we have it in the hollow now, so very likely the next ten years are going to be agonizing ones. (The lower half of the hollow, not shown in that sledding video, contains several hundred hemlocks.) Given that, I don’t begrudge the porcupines a tree or two.

Since this was an orchard from the 1850s on, our soils are quite overrun (overcrawled?) with invasive earthworms. Which may have a lot to do with why so many acres of woods are being taken over by Eurasian shrubs, grasses and forbs.

By: David Harmon

David Harmon — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 16:52:28 +0000

Thanks for checking back… it’s striking how the details of an animal’s feeding habits can make so much difference to it’s ecological imprint. Some creature, perhaps smaller, that just nibbled needles off the branches in situ might well let the hemlock recover. This guy is more effective (even more human-like) in harvesting his food, and can take branches he couldn’t reach otherwise — but that’s to the detriment of the tree. I guess the leftover needles will eventually join the local mulch, anyway.

Come to think of it, how does your land stand in terms of the long-term “soil wars”, that is, conifer needle-bed vs. earthworm mulch?

By: suzanne

suzanne — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 15:59:52 +0000

Dave___

not a day goes by
that I don’t thank you
for posting his photo up
I have had over 100 cats in my lifetime
so far
and he is
far and away
the finest most spectacular
fascinating cat
by whom I have ever been possessed

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 03:30:59 +0000

My teenage daughter and I just watched and read this together. She was fascinated by the porcupine’s talent for climbing trees. The first time I saw it, I thought the porcupine might fall as it advanced to its lunch, but when it released its front feet in order to eat, it really was like a bear on a unicycle . . . on a high wire.

We stopped at almost every biological term so she could explain them to her poor father. She is very jealous of your woods and weather. I think she may end up living as close as she can to nature.

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 15:18:13 +0000

Hi Peter and Natalie – Glad you liked it.

David – I forgot to say that I went and checked, and found the branch on the ground with roughly 3/4 of the needles consumed.

By: Natalie

Natalie — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 13:22:53 +0000

Wonderful, absorbing and amazing. This creature is loveable in an almost Disneyish way, with its slow soft awkward wobbly but determined progress up the tree. I expect it to start singing What A Wonderful World in a Louis Armstrong voice.

By: Peter

Peter — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 13:13:34 +0000

Great post, and worthy of your totem critter.

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 03:04:06 +0000

Kat – Five feet long? Damn. I didn’t realize they got that big.

Joan – Good catch. I filmed the whole five-minute chase thinking it would make amusing video, but in the end I cut it down to the last minute and doubled the speed. So no, I wasn’t really moving that fast.

susanne – He still sounds way more energetic than me! I’m glad I let you take him – he’d have worn me out by now (and probably gotten a faceful of porcupine quills).

David – I think she was just being funny. But yeah, the Tsuga kind of hemlock is not only not poisonous but high in vitamins, I’m heard. Like spruce and pine.

Dana – Do tell.