This post is a little delayed, but I figured it was still worth sharing.

Fittingly for the last day of winter (March 19), I was able to take a snowy walk in the vicinity of the Quabbin Reservoir in Petersham, MA.  Unlike Cape Cod that received mostly rain from the “blizzard” the previous week, there was still 8+ inches of snow in Petersham, despite warmer temperatures and some melting over the previous few days.  The snow, in addition to providing me with one last truly winter hike, also clearly displayed signs and tracks from a number of mammals, including coyote, skunk, and rabbit.  I was most fascinated, however, by the evidence from a animal we don’t have here on Cape Cod: the North American porcupine.

Although porcupines do not hibernate, they do spend a lot of time sleeping in the winter and tend to stay close to their dens.  They venture out a short distance from the entrance of their dens to relieve themselves, before heading back into their shelter, leaving an array of muddy footprints and scat on the snow.  Porcupines traditionally makes their dens in caves, decaying logs or hollow trees, but this particularly resourceful porcupine has taken up occupancy in a pipe under an access road, as seen in the photo below.

The other clues left in the vicinity of the den that confirmed the animal was indeed a porcupine were quills.  Despite some misconceptions, porcupines cannot shoot their quills at predators, but the quills do detach easily when touched.  This can result in a painful lesson for the predator, or in my case a fun discovery in the snow where the porcupine rubbed up against one of the trees, dislodging a couple of its quills.