Varmint took down the bird feeder last night. Since this photo, it had acquired a squirrel baffle that I suspect worked on the raccoon (it didn’t work on the squirrels). As he slid off the side he grabbed on and brought the ensemble to the ground in a crash of steel on wood on earth. The noise woke all of us up. As I shined a light out the window to investigate, from a pile of sunflower seeds and mangled feeder his beady little eyes stared back. Then he left for the creek.
The little bitch came back tonight, not a week after I hammered the feeder back together. At least there weren’t any seeds in it for him to forage. Sucka.
by greg—May 8, 09:18 PM
Apparently the ‘coon weakened the thing enough that as soon as a squirrel jumped on it this morning, it all crashed to the ground. Methinks that birdfeeder is not long for this world…
by greg—May 9, 10:48 AM
S/he hissed at the cats, who were watching him from the window, just now.
by greg—May 13, 10:28 PM
It’s surprising he had the balls to hiss at your cats, given their rather grave bearing.
by JH—May 14, 06:28 AM
Their stern demeanor is frequently offset by wide-eyed dorkiness and other times by significant cuteness. I suspect it was the former that they were displaying last night. Plus, that was a pretty big raccoon.
As with the squirrels, I wonder if we shouldn’t try to provide it with a little extra—some fruit perhaps; anything to keep it away from the sunflower seeds. But I suspect that would have adverse effects, especially on those days that we didn’t leave something out. Raccoons are resourceful buggers.
by greg—May 14, 07:46 AM