My Big Fat Nocturnal Visitor

One morning this spring I woke up to find my broken bird feeder on the ground. Could this be the work of a bear?

I set up my game camera and captured this scary looking creature. 

A Yeti, perhaps?

As the creature grew bolder it bypassed the feeder, preferring instead to climb the steps to my back porch. There it could get the sunflower seed directly from the storage container. 

On the pollen coated surface of the container a clue to its identity emerged!

I decided to latch my container. My uninvited yet determined guest broke the latch and threw the lid aside.

 Finally I captured its photo. Judging by the height of the container she is about 12 inches tall.

 Wait! Who is this? My cat is securely locked in the garage each night!

 The bold visitor returns three hours later for a second serving.

We Interrupt This Program

    This photo was so much fun to take that I am interrupting the string of Montana blogs to show it to you.
    Honey Bunny was in the kitchen getting his afternoon coffee when he happened to glance out the window at the Chinese Plum tree. The raccoon saw him first and ducked his head. All Honey could tell was that there was an animal in the tree.  
    From my comfy chair on the back porch I heard, "Darling! Where are the binoculars?" We pulled the binoculars out from the cabinet and watched the young raccoon as he sat very still. He was perched on a limb that measured only one inch in diameter. A hurricane is approaching our state and we have a steady breeze moving the trees. In addition to this our dog came around to the front yard to see what we were doing. All this made for a very unpleasant afternoon for the raccoon.
    It is usual for us to have young raccoons and possums visit us in the late summer. This one would have been born this past spring. His mother would have shown him where to find food before he moved out of the home. Apparently she showed him our yard with our the bird feeder and fruit trees. When he climbs down from this tree he will travel head first, but will turn his back feet around so that his toes point up the tree.
    Surprisingly, our dog Kira did not detect his presence. She is always very aware and has an excellent nose. I have often seen her stand up on her back legs with her front legs on a tree trunk sniffing the air and barking. I am not sure why she did not pick up on the fact that we had a visitor in our yard. Perhaps the major change in the weather affects her sense of smell in some way.
    The Chinese believe that plums have many health benefits. In studies on rats they increased the rats' endurance while running. Tonight after dark this fellow will surely eat more plums, climb down from his perch, and run away! Without getting winded!

How Lucky Was That?

    Sunday morning I went out very early with my camera. Each time I step into the woods I remind myself that I never know what I might see. This might be the day I photograph a four hundred pound bear or a fourteen pound bobcat. Either of those would be a big "first" for me.

    I settled down with my back against a tree and waited patiently, trying not to fall asleep. Soon I heard a dog barking in the distance. A small herd of deer came crashing by. They were in passing gear and the only photo I took was too blurred to show anyone.

    Fifteen minutes later the dog came by, panting heavily and laboring to climb a hill. She was in 4-wheel drive low and clearly posed no threat to the deer. I thought about getting up from my hiding place to take her picture just for fun, but you might think that was silly.

    The woods settled back down and so did I. In the woods, if you are quiet and still a squirrel may let down his guard and come within camera range. Last year a squirrel leaned so far out from his branch high above that he fell to the ground at my feet with a thump. He nearly gave me a heart attack. 

    On this Sunday morning a little male squirrel scampered through the leaves to check me out. I took his picture, but you have seen plenty of squirrels and I didn't think you would want to see another.

    It was almost nine o'clock and beginning to look like another day in the woods with nothing to show for it. Grand Baby and his mother were coming for coffee and I did not want to be late. I began working my way slowly back to the house while checking the ground carefully. I hoped to see a fawn that might have been left sleeping under a tree while his mom went in search of her breakfast.

    I was almost home when I discovered a blackberry bush growing wild. What a great find! Every wild animal loves to eat blackberries. I stopped for a few minutes to look through my camera lens and think about how I could exploit this new location on my next trip into the woods. A movement to my left caught my eye and so I swung my lens around to catch something I have never seen before. It was a little hummingbird collecting white fluffy material from the weeds to add to her nest.

The average hummingbird weighs eleven grams or less than the weight of five pennies. So this is a very small "first" for me.

Excuse Me

    A raccoon has recently decided to use the hayloft in my horse barn for a potty. This is called a "raccoon latrine." I Googled raccoon latrine and got 17,900 hits in 0.15 seconds. This is obviously a much bigger problem than I realized.
    I chose to follow the advice of a county public health site on the web. "We are the government. We are here to help." Right?
    I followed their instructions to the letter and cleaned up my latrine exactly as they advised. I had to wear protective gear and take multiple precautions as some raccoon feces may carry a deadly parasite.
    Following all this effort the obvious next step was to place something in the hayloft that would prevent the raccoon from returning. The government recommends either mothballs or coyote urine. Wouldn't you know it?  I was completely out of coyote urine! So it would have to be mothballs.
     I spent quite a lot of time placing mothballs all over the hayloft. This is not as easy as it might seem. My hayloft is not tall enough to allow an adult to stand upright. And the only 4 ft tall child I know was busy Sunday. So I stooped over for hours on this job.
    The theory is that the mothballs smell so bad (true) that the raccoon would not return (false.)
    After all my hard work I wanted to see how things were going.  I parked my car outside of the barn and was greeted by the overwhelming odor of mothballs baking in the warm spring air. Confident that this unnatural scent would repel any wild animal I climbed up to the hayloft. There, before my eyes, were at least six little raccoon piles. All of them deposited within inches of my carefully applied mothballs.
    I resolved that none of this would be in vain. I would get a photo! So I set up my trusty deer-cam and got the little guy's picture on the second try.