Porcupine Hunting: Learning About Your Subject

I spent all day Saturday at the Sandhill Outdoor Skills Center near Babcock Wisconsin. The reason for this visit was to study the ecology of the North American Porcupine. You might be asking yourself, why would someone drive 130 miles one way to learn about our states second largest rodent? I have a couple answers to that question. First, curiosity. I just thought it would be interesting. Second, the information would be invaluable for photography.

One of the first things you learn when it comes to wildlife photography, or any type of photography, is that you need to get to know your subject. The more you know about your subject, the better prepared you will be to photograph it.

I wasn't counting on this workshop to produce any award winning photos, but I was counting on it preparing me to create those types of photos in the future. We did have porcupines to photograph though. This was a female that the researchers had captured the day before as part of a long term study they are conducting on porcupines at Sandhill.




After she was released, she climbed up a tree and we headed down the road in search of some more porcupines. You can she is wearing a radio collar.



Once you know what to look for, porcupine dens are pretty easy to locate. You can follow their trails pretty easily in the snow. They are most likely going to lead you to a feed tree or a den site. In the winter, porcupines limit their travels to conserve energy. Look for a hole in a tree, or someplace that would provide a good hiding place for the porcupine where they would be protected from the elements and stay warm. A hollowed out tree makes a great den and the pile of droppings below the opening are a sure sign that it's an active den site.



Once you find a den site, you should check to see if there is a porcupine in it. How do you do this? Easy, stick your hand in it until you feel the quills!


OK, maybe that's not a great idea. To determine if there was something in the den, we would use a digital camera. Simply put it in the hole and take a photo. Make sure your flash is on. Then you can check your photo on the camera's LCD screne to see if there is something in the den.


Be careful when you do this. Porcupines are not aggressive, but there might be something else using the den that is! Culverts make good dens sites too.


If the den is empty, look up, the porcupine might just be watching you from above. Porcupines really only use dens like this in the winter to stay safe and warm. In the summer they spend most of their time in the tree tops feeding. They don't have to worry about the cold, and it's a pretty safe place for them. Their main predator is the fisher. Fishers can climb trees, but they prefer to predate the porcupines while on the ground.


Another way to know if you have porcupines in the area is to look at the trees for signs of damage. Porcupines eat the bark off of trees so when you see trees with the bark stripped from the branches, chances are that a porcupine had a nice meal there. Notice the stripped limbs in the tree in the center of the photo? On closer inspection, we found that this tree also has an active den in it.


Since they are actively conducting research on porcupines at Sandhill, we set a couple of traps while we were out in the field.


The traps are insulated with straw to keep the porcupines warm, and will be checked in the morning. If there is a porcupine in the trap, they will be taken back to the office to collect all of the data the researchers need and possibly be fitted with a radio collar. They will then be taken back to where they were trapped and released.


Getting to know the researchers is another great way to learn more about your subjects. With shrinking budgets, and smaller staffs, researchers are often happy to have volunteers to help them out. While helping them out in the field, you can pick their brain with all kinds of questions. They are happy to share their knowledge with you and it will help you to be prepared for finding and photographing the subjects on your own.


After a long day in the field, and a long drive heading south, it was great to see the geese flying north. It was a nice way to end a great day.

500mm @ 1/20 sec

If you've been into photography for a while, you have probably heard the rule of thumb in regards to the minimum shutter speed you should use when hand holding your camera in order to eliminate camera shake and to get a sharp photo. If not, the rule is pretty simple. To figure out the minimum shutter speed you should use simply put 1 over your focal length. For example, if you are using a 50mm lens you would put 1 over 50 or 1/50 sec. to determine your shutter speed. If you're shooting at 100mm you should use at least 1/100 sec. to help eliminate camera shake. This is pretty simple math, but don't forget that you also need to factor in the crop factor if you are shooting with a DSLR with a smaller than full frame sensor.

That's all fine and good, but what happens when conditions don't allow you to use that fast of a shutter speed and you don't have an image stabilized lens or camera? There is a trick you can use to help improve your chances of getting a sharp image at slow shutter speeds. The trick is pretty simple and can work wonders. The first thing you need to do is to set your cameras motor drive to the fastest frame rate that it has. The faster the better for this technique to work. Then once you get your subject in focus, press and hold down the shutter button and take a series of 3-5 consecutive exposures before releasing the shutter button. As you press the button down, you are adding more movement to the camera, and as you release the button you are doing the same. By pressing the button, and holding it down, you are still taking photos but you are not moving your finger so you're not adding more camera shake. Chances are that one of the images in the middle of the series is going to be much sharper than the first and last images.

For the last couple of months I have been photographing wildlife from my kayak. A kayak on the water, although pretty stable as far as a boat goes, is not very stable as far as a shooting platform goes. I find that a tripod in the boat is too much of a hassle, but a monopod works great. My old Sigma 170-500mm is my main wildlife lens but it has some limitations. The major one is that it is too soft for my tastes when shooting wide open. I have to shoot this lens stopped down to f/9 in order to get sharp images which in low light, gives me painfully slow shutter speeds, even when I boost the ISO to 800. Also note that this lens does not optically stabilized. Using the burst mode and a monopod has allowed me to get acceptably sharp photos at long focal lengths and relatively slow shutter speeds.

Here are a few examples of what I'm talking about. In the series of frog images, all were shot at 500mm with a shutter speed of 1/60 sec. Keep in mind that the rule of thumb mentioned above means that I should have a shutter speed of at least 1/800 sec in order to help reduce the effects of camera shake. (This is because of the 1.6x crop factor of my camera body. 500mm x 1.6 = 800) That's almost 4 stops slower than the rule of thumb! By shooting a series using the motor drive, you can see how much sharper the middle image is than the first and last images. (You may have to click on the images to see them larger to really notice the difference.)







Here is another example from this weekend. This young bald eagle was perched in complete shade giving me a shutter speed of 1/20 sec! That's over 5 stops slower than the rule of thumb! These images were shot at 500mm and cropped to show about 50% of the actual frame.







Here is my final version of the 2nd image after applying a little sharpening.



So when you're out in the field and you are stuck photographing as a slow shutter speed and you don't have a tripod, remember to try using your cameras motor drive to improve your chances of getting a sharp photo.