Nature Notes

by Linda Martinson

September 2020

We have been dueling with a raccoon lately. We had been moving the bird feeder at night from the deck to the screen porch, but one night a raccoon ripped a hole in a screen, came in, and helped himself. So we put the bird feeder in the house the next night, but that rascally raccoon came in again, pried open the cover on the big plastic seed container, and helped himself to a feast of seeds. Then we got a sturdier and bigger metal seed container with a very tight lid, and he pried that open, too! We were a little slow on the uptake, but the following night we put the seed container in the house. That night our resident raccoon knocked over a vase of flowers on the porch, but he hasn’t figured out how to get in the house yet…thankfully!