Many of you know that my husband has a hobby building things. And many of you know about all the wildlife we have here in the country - not all of which is well loved by us. We have many bird feeding stations in our backyard which we fill with black sunflowers only. The number of birds and species of birds we get both winter and summer is wonderful!
But we have discovered something - it is not only birds that love sunflowers. Deer love them, and we get a group of 4 deer at the same time twice a day to clean up what the birds have scattered from the feeders. Not only that, they actually tip the feeders that hang to pour the seed directly down their throats. I have picture proof!
And then there is the elusive fox that comes to feed on sunflowers. It is a rare treat to see him as he is very cautious, and only comes when it is dusk or dawn.
But the one creature that we don't like to see, and that frequents the feeders every few days are the porcupine. All the dogs we have had since moving here 17 years ago have been quilled, which is a very painful experience for me...seeing the vet remove the quills (after the men have tried and failed). As well, they have gnawed on the house siding as they love wood. They have climbed our Diamond Willow bushes and stripped the branches of their protective covering.
From our backyard to our upper deck is 17 steps, and the porcupine climb those stairs to eat the seed which lands on the deck from one of the bird feeders. There was even a baby that climbed up one night and couldn't get back down, so was mewing at our bedroom window for its mother. With the help of a broom to direct its path, it finally found the stairs and learned how to fall/stumble down them at 2:00 a.m.
Recently, there has been more porcupine activity than usual, so my husband researched, and built a live porcupine trap! We set the bait with salt. If any of you have read "Poppy" to your children (a children's book by author Avi), you will know that porcupine LOVE salt. An apple core with salt sprinkled over it was beyond tempting to the first porcupine. At 1:30 a.m., she walked into the trap and ate the apple core, then proceeded to begin chewing through the wood of the trap. That was the noise that wakened us. Syd got up, carried the trap into the back of the Jeep, and drove to a place a few kilometers from our home to release the creature into a new location, far from homes and farms.
Two nights later, we captured another porcupine which we believe is the mother of the first one captured. This one came a bit earlier in the night - only 10:30 p.m. Once again, Syd placed the trap and creature into the Jeep, and drove to the same place to release it, hoping it would find its baby. Here are a couple of pictures of that capture.
This morning we found evidence (scat) that a THIRD porcupine is here!!!! Once again the trap will go out tonight. Guess we had a colony that we didn't know about. So glad Syd built that trap!
A few nights ago, it was hot - the kind of hot where you don't sleep as soundly because you vacillate between being too hot with the sheets on, and too cool without them. So when I awoke at 2:45 a.m., I didn't think too much about it until there was a strange moaning sound. I looked over at my sleeping husband, and it didn't seem to be a new kind of snoring coming from him. And then I heard it again, outside our open windows.
By this time, Syd was also awake, and asking me, "What was that?" I got up, looked out one of our open windows onto the deck, but didn't see anything. I then moved to the other open window, and scared the baby porcupine that was right there on the other side of a flimsy screen. It scudded back from the screen, and I uttered a slight scream as I backed away from the other side of the screen.
The thing is, this deck is up a flight of 17 steps, and there was a wire mesh "barrier" which was lying on the 4th, 5th, and 6th steps as a deterrent to a large porcupine which been leaving its scat on a regular basis - proof it had climbed the 17 steps to eat the scattered sunflowers the birds tossed out of the birdfeeder onto the deck. But the baby had no difficulty using its little hands to grasp in between the mesh to pull itself over the barrier and on up the stairs. Now it was stuck, and its mommy was on the lower deck calling for it to come back. And she was big, anxious, and read for a fight.
So, my brave Syd removed the barrier while I kept an eye on the mommy, then he took a broom to the upper deck, and gently "directed" the little guy toward the stairs. It took a while because every time Syd touched him with the broom, he would swing around his tail and stop completely. Gradually he was encouraged down each step, upon which he left his much smaller pieces of scat - perhaps an indication of how he was feeling about the broom. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, off he went into the night. We searched to find where the mommy had gone, and she was under the stand that our rain barrel is on. As soon as Syd touched her with the broom, she turned and presented her tail. We left her there, and came inside to go back to bed. What a cute and feisty little porcupine this was - black as night except for those white quills which were quite evident as soon as he became upset. Too bad he is going to grow and become large. Guess we'll have to figure a new way to keep these creatures off our upper deck.
Ahhhh.... life in the country.
