Our Furry Neighbours

quill_luv

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We have a family of raccoons in our tree and after supper Momma Coon decided to parade her babies around the yard! Well, we saw her push out one kid through the tree hole, and thought to ourselves, OK, she has one baby. Nope. A few minutes later there's another baby making its way down the tree, looking like a furry little spider. The other baby waited patiently on the fence as its sibling carefully climbed down to meet it. Okay, two babies, not bad. Well .... Nooooo


A few minutes later, there are FIVE baby coons on the fence, falling off the rails, wrestling on the ground and having a grand old time playing! And then Momma made her way down the tree, and I noticed, as she came out from the bush, her tail was stumpy, shorter than usual. So I've named her Stumpy
. How original! Anyway, Stumpy rounds her babies up and watches us humans for awhile. I tried to get pics of them. The bubs aren't afraid of us at all, and neither is Stumpy by the looks of it. At least two of the babies managed to come within two meters of us. And then Stumpy sort of growled at them and they were off, trampling through the garden, checking out the flowers, wrestling, playing tag, digging .... They were SO adorable! Eventually Stumpy decided it was time for play to be over, so she rounded them up and they were gone. One baby held back and looked at us with its big brown eyes as if to say "Nice knowing ya!" and it was gone.


We've had raccoons in our maple for as long as I can remember and it's ao great to see babies again. For awhile I thought the raccoons had abandoned us, but it seems they come back year after year to show us their beautiful, healthy babies. The tree itself is over 100 years old, and our property is on a slope. I've read that raccoons favour the highest geographical point, and it seems our tree is just what they're looking for year after year. It's a love/hate relationship, they get into our garbage constantly, and are noisy at night. But it's always so wonderful to see these little scallywags
!

I'm always hoping that one of them will come back to our tree to start their own family next year, and continue their tradition.
 

butterflydream

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That would have been cool to see, though we had at some time late last night, a raccoon or two come up onto the porch here and wreak havoc.
 

crazy4cats28

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It must have been cute to see the babies. We get raccoons here everynight but the smallest ones I've seen is about the size of a small cat only fatter. The ones here aren't afraid of people at all. One has even made friends with one of my feral cats. The cat comes and gets me everynight to tell me to feed his raccoon friend. They are absolutley adorable but very mean and messy.

Below is a picture I took a while ago. Sorry its not the clearest but I took it through a screen door.

 

theimp98

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agree they are cute.

But please remember they are wild. I spent a lot of time with my mothers family in the hills.

they can also be very mean. Once we had one that killed 4 cats that lived out side of my grandmothers house. Maybe it was sick or something i dont know.
 

pushylady

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I think it's wonderful that you get to see this wildlife in your backyard.
How cute of her to show off her babies!
 

satai

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Originally Posted by Quill_luv

I'm always hoping that one of them will come back to our tree to start their own family next year, and continue their tradition.
Its sweet that you are so supportive of them!
 
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