Nighttime Visitors

For some time we have suspected that there were critters coming onto the deck at night.  Just little clues, really, like the birdseed container being gnawed on, or the woodpecker’s suet block disappearing overnight, or this feeder being empty every morning.  (Despite it’s squirrel-proof billing.)  We’ve started only putting one scoop of seeds in it so that we aren’t going through them so fast.

When Russ was getting ready for seminary the other morning he heard something out on the deck and looked out the bathroom window.  He told me later that he saw two raccoons on the deck eating the birdseed.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that…until Josh and I were up late Friday and he called out to me that there was a racoon on the deck.  I grabbed my camera (not sure what I could do with it that late at night, but darned sure I was going to try!) and ran to the window.

Sure enough, there was the masked, ring-tailed culprit.  Having his way with our black oil sunflower seeds.

Somehow watching it out there on the deck took all of the irritation right out of me.  How am I supposed to get mad at this???

 

PS—I have a hard time reconciling the image of the cute critter on my deck with the animals in the book “Where the Red Fern Grows.”  But I’m not going out there to play with it any time soon…