Saturday, November 2, 2013

What the Raccoons Did, Part II


We have a hummingbird bush in the backyard.  It's beautiful, with red blossoms that are just perfect for the hummingbirds' long beaks to dip into for the flowers' nectar.

This is the first year it's grown so big that it almost covered the whole window.  There's a bird feeder hanging above the hummingbird bush.  And therein lies the problem.

This is what the bush looks like:

You can see the bird feeder here:

Well, some generations of raccoons that visit our yard from the nearby swamp, are smarter than others.  It took a long time for the present raccoon family to discover the bird feeder, which is the reason that our hummingbird bush grew so large.  But now, every night, they are in pursuit of birdseed.  They learned to climb the branches of the hummingbird bush and pull themselves up to the bird feeder.  The branches aren't too strong, so damage has been done:


You can see that the branches cracked and broke.  But now it's harder for the raccoons to reach the bird feeder.  I haven't yet seen how they get into the bird feeder now that the branches are broken.  Maybe they learned to do what previous raccoon generations have done:  climb up on the roof, reach under the eaves, grab ahold of the chain holding the bird feeder, pull the seed tray up to the roof, up end it on the ground, then jump back onto the ground to eat all the seeds.  The first time I saw that, I thought, "Wow, we have really clever raccoons."  I wish I had caught the whole process on camera.  I think I need one of those wildlife cameras.  Hey, that would be a could Christmas present!

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