Earlier that evening, I had a pack of howling coyotes all around me. Some were as close as 50 meters. A little later I bumped into a bull moose and two of his love interests. I have no concern for coyotes. A bull moose with two big spiky satellite dishes on his head on the other hand is of great concern to me - especially when you only have a bow and no tag.
The extra 30 pounds I carry – that’s not hunting equipment - doesn’t make for a viable arboreal escape option – what with the first branch 25 feet off the ground and all! Thankfully he was more interested in chasing his leggy girls around than me. When he moved, I moved – backwards until I was safely behind the knoll I first came around!
I'm pretty sure this was the same gang of 4 moose - minus one bull - that chased me across the open pasture 2 years ago. Talk about clearing a barbed-wire fence and diving into the tree line with no problem! Luckily I only lost my cell phone.
Anyway, like I was saying… it was almost dark. The path was narrow. Suddenly something moved at the base of the twisted bush about 3 meters in front of me. I stopped dead. The dark shadowy object stopped dead. And for a few seconds we eyed each other. Now you must know that I’m not scared of too many things. I mean I grew up in Africa. I know there are only a few animals here that are not worth bumping into… cougars, bears, and maybe a rutting moose or elk or a wolf or 2.
I can walk through the Canadian bush in a state of relative calm, enjoying the experience. I know I’m not going to step on a Puff Adder lying in the path or get chased by a Black Mamba or struck in the thigh or spat in the eye by a Mozambique Spitting Cobra. I’m not going to be stalked by a lion or a leopard. There are no marauding packs of hyenas or Cape hunting dogs. I won’t be charged by 1000 lbs. of rock hard – stinkin’ mean Buffalo or a snorting Black Rhino with a meter long horn. I won’t walk into the web of a spiky orange and black Orb spider with a leg span 5” across or pick up a rock and be stung by a scorpion or bitten by a Black Widow spider.
So… there at the base of this bush was the dark shape staring at me out of the corner of his eye.
It was a porcupine! I whipped out my camera and with a dying battery I got right up close and took a video (WHICH BLOGGER NEVER LETS ME UP LOAD!) and some pictures. He crawled up the trunk. When I moved around the bush, which was only as high as my head, I noticed its 2” long claws! But his face – what a cute little face!
You’d imagine a tree-climbing porcupine to be a slow and cumbersome thing. Imagine again. The second I reached out to touch its cute little foot it spun around in a flash bearing a butt-end of short, sharp, black and white quills. I am convinced that had it not wedged its porky little self into the branches, it would have backed up right off the bush at high speed and pinned it’s spiky end to my face. Now imagine that!
Okay – maybe I can add one more Canadian animal, which when at face level, and threatened could do an African face some damage.
The sun was back-lighting the grass and thistles and the sky was a soft yellowy orange.
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