It was one of those moments when you doubt what you are actually seeing. In this case, there were two of us seeing it, and we still couldn’t quite believe it.
My wife happened to look out the kitchen window the other evening, looked at me and said, “Look out and tell me what you see, because I can’t quite believe it.” So I looked out, and over near the edge of the back lawn was a greyish brown lump. It was moving, slightly. It mostly seemed to be adjusting something in front of it’s face. It look like a yellow flower.
So I grabbed a pair of binoculars that were nearby and got a closer look. It was a porcupine. Holding a dandelion. It almost looked like it was offering someone a flower. No. It was eating it. Or at least the lower part.
This is not what you would call a wilderness area. It’s in town. While there is a small wooded area nearby, it is not really known as a wildlife refuge. But here was a porcupine, sitting on the back lawn, snacking on a dandelion.
I generally think of porcupines as animals that eat tree bark. They climb trees, gnaw on bark and eat that way. This one had other ideas. And it seems it is not alone.
During the spring and summer months, porcupines like to forage on the ground. Why climb trees if you don’t have to? They stay on the ground and eat things like grasses, clover, dandelions, raspberry leaves and canes and plants that grow near the water. They have also been known to eat water plants and go swimming to get them. But they seem to enjoy dandelions.
This may even explain why we see so many of them along the sides of our roads. They’re not necessarily like chickens, trying to get to the other side. They could be just snacking on the roadside greenery and just happen to wander to far into traffic. They probably know there are very few things that are going to try to eat them, so they don’t expect that speeding hunk of metal coming at them to do them any damage. They’re concentrating on the next bunch of clover or grass.
But I still didn’t expect one on the lawn, and it has me looking a lot closer to what might be around before I let the dog out. While she doesn’t really care much about dandelions, she likely doesn’t want to share them with some prickly visitor from out of town.
It does however have me wondering about the wisdom of letting dandelions grow to help the bees. It seems to be attracting really large bees with lots of extra stingers.
