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October 11, 2004
Wildlife In the City
I was sitting here surfing the web around dark 30 this morning when I heard the most awful squealing, growling, snarling, hissing sounds coming from the front of the house. I first thought it was a cat fight, but as I hustled to get the flashlight it became obvious it wasn't a cat....unless some wild animal had attacked our cat anyway.
I didn't see anything on the ground or the porch, so I started scanning a big hollow tree that's close to our front porch. A telltale green gleam caught my eye, and I spotted the culprit.
A medium-sized raccoon.
From the looks of things, the coon had tried to evict one or more of the squirrels from their dens in the hollow tree. And the squirrel(s) had naturally objected to being evicted out into the cold rain. I kept the flashlight on it, and it finally clambered down and trundled across the lawn, though he/she will probably be back.
It seems a bit early for coons to be looking for a place to den up. Winter, I suspect, is going to arrive early this year, judging from this and the frantic activity of the squirrels and chipmunks the last couple of weeks.
Yippee skippy.
Posted by Rita at October 11, 2004 08:29 AM
Comments
You do know, Rita, that all racoons are named "Bandit," right? :-)
Posted by: david at October 11, 2004 10:42 PM
I'm so not looking forward to winter.
Posted by: yayaempress at October 12, 2004 08:20 AM
Not all, David. The two we had as pets when I was a kid were called 'Ma' and 'Pa' Raccoon. They are pretty cool pets, except for that carrying rabies thing.
Me neither, Yayaempress. My daughter said the other day that she was ready for a big snow. I thought about just smacking her.
Posted by: rita at October 12, 2004 09:10 AM