Why would a porcupine go so far out on a limb? Wouldn’t it be safer closer to the trunk? Although porcupines are quite good at balancing themselves, many fall to their death by venturing out on limbs. I’ve seen porcupines on trees in the salt marsh before, but they were always clinging to thicker branches or resting on top of large evergreen boughs.
You’ve got to go out on a limb sometimes because that’s where the fruit is.
~ Will Rogers
Rogers’ quotation might apply to porcupines in apple trees, but this porcupine wasn’t on a fruit tree. Porcupines will eat the inner bark of fir trees in winter when other food is more scarce, but although there are many fir trees in the marsh, this wasn’t one of them. The porcupine was also hanging out on an island that’s a common roost for bald eagles in the marsh. Eagles, coyotes and bobcats, all marsh residents, are known to prey on porcupines.
This tree looks like a maple and it does appear as though some of its bark has been chewed. Perhaps, with its acute sense of smell, the porcupine was lured by the scent of tender leaf buds that might be just beginning to emerge at the tips of the branches. I can only wonder.