The Dog and the Raccoon

                       Here's Walter:

Here's Walter looking outside:

Here's the raccoon that comes to the backyard to eat leftover cat food every single night:

This is why Walter goes into alert and starts barking to let us know there is an interloper in his backyard.

I Finally Saw It!

I have been trying to catch the raccoons in the act of raiding the bird feeder, and I finally saw it tonight, with the help of Walter's sharp ears.  His cries alerted me to the raccoons right outside the kitchen window.

I saw one of the raccoons jump up onto the window ledge, and from there, he made a flying leap onto the bird feeder above him.  The tray of the bird feeder went straight up in the air because of the raccoon hanging on one side of it.  I saw the bird seed spill onto the ground.  The raccoon held onto the bird feeder tray with the grasping paws of his legs, and then he jumped onto the ground.

I saw him do this twice.  Now I just need to get the proper equipment to take a video of it so you'll believe me!

Raccoon Treats

I made some praline bars, a recipe I got from the newspaper.  I made two trays of them, but the one closest to the heating coil at the bottom of the oven - all of those got a little "crispy," i.e., burned...  I hate when that happens because I hate wasting food.  So I figured the raccoons wouldn't mind crispy praline bars, after all, why wouldn't they like graham crackers with melted butter and brown sugar with pecans?

Well, I put all of the praline bars into two paper plates and left them out on the patio.  Sure enough, the next morning, every single one of them had been eaten.  Christmas came a little early for my raccoons.  Wonder what they're leaving me tonight....

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!

Look What the Raccoons Did!

I had buckets of potting soil on the back patio, and the raccoons knocked them over, looking for food.  They scarf up whatever's leftover from the feral cats that we feed in the backyard, but then, everything else is fair game...