Category: Raccoons

Raccoons and their kits

Farewell to a Favorite Tree

Our broken, branchless beech finally fell.

The tree was about fifty-five years old* when we bought our home in 2004. On our well-wooded property, it didn’t command any particular notice. Then in 2015, Pileated Woodpeckers chose it for their nest. That was quite a show, which I filmed. But the poor tree! The woodpeckers removed about five gallons of wood to dig a cavity some 19” deep.

That’s when the tree’s trouble—to my eventual great delight—began.
Continue reading Farewell to a Favorite Tree

Image Credits: Carol Doeringer.

A Snag, a Storm, and a Surprise

Two white-rimmed ears caught my eye.

Something was inside a cavity in our old, broken tree. That snag had a history of sheltering woodland creatures. But the tree was in terrible condition. It was well-rotted.  And the trunk that snapped years earlier was letting that day’s downpour reach inside.

Continue reading A Snag, a Storm, and a Surprise

Image Credits: Carol Doeringer.

The Balcony

I just love rotting trees.

They’re wildlife magnets. I’m particularly fond of one such tree just outside my window. It has held my attention since 2015 when Pileated Woodpeckers nested there.

But the snag’s rotten story began about a decade earlier when we had a limb removed.

Continue reading The Balcony

Image Credits: Carol Doeringer.

One Plucky Bird

Tufted Titmice are fearless little critters.

I’ve seen them squabble with much larger birds. They don’t hesitate to steal leaves from occupied squirrel dens. Yesterday, I watched one Tufted Titmouse gather nest material.  Her method doubled my respect for these birds’ pluck.

People sometimes toss hair outside, hoping birds will use it in their nests. Some birds forage fur from roadkill. But the Tufted Titmouse has another source for nest material. She harvests hair from sleeping animals. Dogs, squirrels, and raccoons are common targets.

Yesterday, I saw this seemingly reckless bird behavior with my own eyes.

Continue reading One Plucky Bird

Slumber, Lumber Raccoon

Ungainly, clumsy, and cumbrous.

A raccoon exits our broken tree, and those three words come to mind. The animal’s slow, lumbering descent is unlike a nimble raccoon I watched three years ago.

This year’s raccoon has been climbing in and out of what’s been a nesting snag for woodpeckers, wood ducks, starlings, and squirrels. The snag is like a high-rise condo, with more than a dozen visible cavity entrances. Judging from the creatures’ in-and-out behavior, I believe many of the cavities are discrete–they don’t interconnect. The upper cavity, where the raccoon catches its 40 winks, doesn’t offer much shelter. Here’s what I mean:

Considering that broken top, I’ve assumed this is a raccoon snoozing spot and not the den of a nesting female.

But then… there’s that cumbrous descent. The animal’s gait is increasingly labored, and it reminds me of my own ponderous waddle decades ago, when my babies neared full term.

Is my masked neighbor a nesting mama, after all? Continue reading Slumber, Lumber Raccoon

Squatter’s Rights

A dozen doors and a skylight.

That’s the approximate count of cavity entrances in the old, broken snag outside my window. I love that ugly remnant of a tree! It brings a daily wildlife show to my front-row seat.

The tree has been occupied by Pileated Woodpeckers, nesting squirrels, Wood Ducks, European Starlings, and Red-Bellied Woodpeckers—several of them simultaneously.

This nesting season, I watched Juliet Squirrel quiver from her balcony in this tree, as she was courted by a Romeo. Soon after, I watched Juliet pad the cavity with leaves, a sure sign she’s expecting. I was looking forward to watching Juliet’s kits take tentative (and comical) first steps outside the cavity.

And then another creature exercised squatter’s rights.

Continue reading Squatter’s Rights

Life in a Snaggy Wood

Snaggy—that’s a technical term I just made up to describe our wooded backyard.

Our little forest has a lovely sprinkling of snags, the forestry term for standing dead and dying trees. I became a snag advocate (a snagvocate?) soon after moving into our home in the woods. In defense of the dead tree, I’ve convinced Bert that we should remove dead wood only as needed to keep our view of the lake below, and to protect the house from hazard in a storm. Otherwise, we leave the dead trees alone.

And oh, the rewards for benign neglect!
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Mama Raccoon’s High Wire Act

Circus acrobats have nothing on Mama Raccoon

When a raccoon nested in one of our snags, I was surprised to see how often she left her kits alone in their tree cavity. Mama departed five or six times daily during daylight hours, and she probably made a few nighttime trips. She was surely hungry and thirsty from nursing her babes.

Mama was cautious, too. Well, cautious like a high-wire walker.
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Hang On Tight, Raccoon Kit

For ten years, it was the squirrel tree.

Squirrels popping in and out of holes like whack-a-mole, minus the whacking. Chase scenes straight out of Disney—squirrel nose chasing squirrel tail, three and sometimes four in a line, circling the trunk and diving into this hole or that one. This was nature’s comedy routine.

And then a mama raccoon exercised squatter’s rights.

read more and see the video