In Which We Mock Baby Racoons, Because They are Stupid.

I am accustomed to seeing our racoons caught on tape in the middle of the night.

"What? This is mine, right?"

So I was surprised when I looked in the backyard this morning and saw one of our two trees was leaking racoons. Adult racoons, BABY racoons, just pouring out of the tree.

I screamed "RACOON FAMILY!"

Gary completely missed it. He was alseep, sans glasses and cane, and by the time he made it to the window the racoons (alarmed by my screaming) had trundled off to the other large tree and crawled up to safety. (They are horrifyingly hunchbacked, even the kits.)

Later that morning, I  thought, "Why would those racoons have been outside during the day," glanced outside and and screamed again. "RACOON FAMILY!"

This time Gary made it to the window and found the binoculars. We were able to watch momma and baby racoons feeding at the bird feeder, and we watched a kit climb on top of the feeder and tumble down to the ground. We screamed with laughter, and again they were alarmed and left.

I checked the web and found Mom has to take the time to teach the kits how to feed, and if food hasn't been available because the FoodGiver's back was out, racoons will make an exception and come out during the day looking for food when it eventually arrives.

The kits are tiny and adorable. Compare this baby to the big Momma above:

Kits are cute, but they truly do need to be taught how to forage. Look how stupid these babies are.

Look at this idiot trying to eat with his foot. You can almost see the other on top of the feeder, right before the fall.

But so cute when they get it.

 

Comments

[Faythe]

Awww. Babies! I remember at our old place we had two baby raccoons that we were able to feed through our window (we lived on the second floor). We fed them cat food and grapes by hand, they were so cute! Then they got big and growly and joined an older raccooon gang and that was the end of that. But they were so sweet when they were still little.

[Mare]

I am jealous you have babies - so cute! We only have one massive male raccoon around here - he weighs about 40 lbs and regularly takes down the bird feeders, ravages the composter, and sits staring into the windows like he wants to eat one of us. First time I saw him I almost screamed - he looks like a baby black bear, he's so big...

[TheQueen]

Faythe - you folks have a history of hand-feeding wildlife.
Mare - Wikipedia says the females keep the males far away from the kits. We're lucky, the males must be far away.