An animal visitor this evening
After the thunderstorm early this evening, I happened to look out through the sidelights on either side of our front door to see if our bad boy cat wanted to come in but I saw the large wide back of a raccoon as it was chowing down on the catfood we leave by the entry for a couple of wild cats.
This raccoon was unafraid and when I opened the storm door to get a better picture, it stuck its nose in the door and would have come in if I hadn't closed the door quickly. Our dog was ready to have a go at it so if it had come in, it would have been a mess. The picture I took of the raccoon as it tried to come in, is blurred because I was trying to shut the door quickly. Kinda cute though with its beauty spot on the left cheek.
In the first picture, you can see our cat's eyes shining behind the raccoon. The cat was rather calm through the whole episode even as the raccoon made a defensive gesture towards him. I guess they've met before.
Just the other morning my wife called to me to come downstairs to see if the animal eating catfood was a baby deer. Well it turned out to be the fox that I saw previously and who yelped at our cat a few times. The yelp is almost like a baby crying, an aaa, aaa, aaa sound. A very strange and creepy sound especially late at night. My wife mistook it for a fawn because of its very long legs and large ears.
P.S. I let the cat out early this morning 05/17/07 and 15 minutes later I heard the familiar yelping so I ran out the door to rescue the cat who appeared from under the van all frizzed up and out came the fox who apparently was at the far end of the car. I got a good look at the fox who took its time leaving. It had a lot of black in the fur. I guess it's the guard hairs that are black hiding the red under hair. It did have very long legs for a fox and was a good sized one too about the size of a beagle but not so bulky.
posted by Ki at
6:20 PM
9 Comments:
Wow, it's a good thing you don't have a doggie door. Great job of taking a picture while closing the door in time. If I tried something like that the picture would have been of my wife screaming at me. :)
Amazing how much wild animals enjoy cat food! We used to have a skunk that ate cat food out of the dish in the garage, right by the door to the house! I fed the expensive stuff, and that was one beautiful, sleek-coated skunk!
Sorry for not responding sooner my ISP connection was down.
Hi Anthony,
My wife would have let the raccoon in! It was a juggling act, trying to keep the dog at bay, photographing the raccoon and managing the door at the same time. ;)
Hi Lisa,
We have all kinds of visitors. I can hear our cat who is indoor hissing and yowling right now. Must be that raccoon again as I type this! They all love the catfood including some starlings. So far a 'possum, skunk, raccoon, fox and various wild cats visit the food. We leave out just plain ole Purina which our cat seems to prefer over other brands. Funny that the skunk you fed had a beautiful coat.
What a cheeky raccoon that was! Isn't the fox dangerous to your cat? Rabies?
I'm glad we don't get all these wild animals in our garden!
Loved the pics though, quick thinking and snapping. ;-).
BTW your comment thingy on your post of 19 May isn't working. It doesn't appear underneath your post. I've seen other blogs with this problem recently.
Hi Yolanda Elizabet, Both our dog and cat are vaccinated against rabies, it's our township law but I sure don't want them to get hurt fighting with the wildlife.
It was more like snapping then thinking, oops the raccoon is trying to get in!!!
Thank you very much for bringing my attention to the missing comment link. I had some trouble with my ISP connection and was working with technical support who made me reset a number of things on my computer. Maybe Blogger decided to change a few things too? Anyway, I've hopefully corrected the problem.
Thanks for the comments.
After being exposed to rabid Raccoon at work I will not go near them. EVER! I won't forgot those injections for a long time.
Chris, this one acted normal so it didn't even cross my mind that it could be rabid. Did you have the course of 6? injections in the stomach? Ouch! I heard they have a new vaccination now that doesn't involve so many shots nor having to administer it on the stomach area.
No I didn't get the stomach shots but the shots are administered by body weight and I am a large person. I think I got 10 or 12 shots the first time and then had to go back several times for more. Total cost: $7500.
Ouch! This was a good time to be a tiny, skinny person. They hurt you, then hurt you, then hurt you again in the pocketbook. Good grief, I'll have to remember that and be careful around wildlife. BTW, that ungrateful raccoon left us a present this morning, a pile of poo! And I think the fox was killed. There was a mangled fox carcass on the main road not a block away from our home.
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