Thursday, August 20, 2020

Masked bandidos stage a raid

This was the scene at my main bird feeder the other night. Not one, not two, but three yearling raccoons helping themselves to my seed. Their mom taught them to do this. Earlier in the year, when these guys were much smaller, they'd gather around the base of this feeder. Mom would scale up - and over my "anti-mammal" baffle, and then start flinging seed down to the youngsters. In short order, she - and now they - clean the feeder out.

My attempts to thwart them, or at least some of them, have met with temporary success. But the coons eventually engineer a solution. They are clever, make no mistake.

I have a new plan. I think it may work, and prevent the masked bandits from climbing this feeder. I'm not yet saying what my plan is, for fear of jinxing myself. However, if long-term success is achieved I'll gladly share my battle plan.

No sleep is lost over this on my part. I consider battling marauding raccoons at a backyard bird feeder very much a first-world problem. Beside, I must admit to a certain fondness for the clever critters.

PHOTO NOTE: This is what ISO 32,000 looks like, as created by the Canon 5D IV. Even with noise reduction applied later, it isn't pretty. It was pitch-black when I made the shot, and it was through a window. Flash would have reflected back, so it wasn't used. If I go outside where I could use flash, I won't get this kind of shot, most likely. As soon as they see me, the coons usually go on alert and scramble down. I've yelled at them one too many times, I guess :-) As a testament to Canon's superb image stabilization, the shot was made at 1/15, handheld, at f/2.8 (with the Canon 400mm f/2.8L II).

3 comments:

David Smith said...

Beautiful shot. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

What a great picture! And a great attitude toward mammals at the bird feeder. My particular nemesis (very plural) are small brown rats - at least they don't climb, but my visceral reaction on seeing them is spoiling my fun with the birds.

Always something. I need a fox.

ceci

Jack and Brenda said...

I live in rural Shelby County and with the price of racoon pelts being almost 0, the young trappers in this area have quit the sport. Now, racoons are populating at a fast pace. We had a family that would visit our deck at night and crawl out on a wire hanger to get to a hummingbird feeder. We caught them numerous times tipping it up like a bottle of bourbon.
I have a 5 acre property and have caught 28 racoons so far this season, but I'm still seeing groups of them on my trail camera.