7-14-06

  We had some visitors to the yard tonight.  The raccoon population seems to have increased quite a bit recently.  I apologize for the quality of the pictures, it's difficult to shoot through the window when you use a flash.  There's almost always enough reflection to turn a good picture into something that's barely viewable.

  When we first noticed them we only saw 6 young ones.  After a few minutes, an adult with 3 little ones showed up to get in on the smorgasbord of corn and sunflower seeds that had fallen to the ground.  Notice the little one just arriving in the upper left corner of the picture.

  When the first 6 noticed the adult and little ones arriving they had to turn around and keep an eye on them for a while.

  The little ones kept their distance from the juvenile bunch up front.

  These two were pretty determined to clean up this ear of corn.

  Of course, raccoons being the curious critters that they are, we weren't surprised when this happened.

  Through it all the flying squirrel that was eating at another sunflower seed feeder never slowed down or paid any attention to the 10 raccoons on the ground.

  Speaking of flying squirrels, there were 6 of them here one evening last week.  They've gotten so used to us coming out to add seeds to the feeder that they're almost tame.  I walked out with the camera and took a few pictures at two of the feeders.  These two kept an eye on me as I walked toward them.

  This feeder is only 2 feet from the window so we have a good view from inside.

  It's sometimes hard to see the folds of skin that run from their front legs to the back.  Flying squirrels don't really fly, they glide using these folds of skin as sort of wings.  Here's a picture that shows that a little better.

  These two finally decided that I wasn't a threat and went about the business of having a meal of sunflower seeds.

The last 4 flying squirrel pictures were taken at 8:50 PM just as it was getting dark.

Use your "Back" button to return to the main page.

jl