[Magdalen] Where do they live?

[Scott Knitter]

I love the German word for raccoon: Waschbär ("wash-bear"), reflecting the
raccoon's habit of washing food just before eating it (if there's water to
wash it in).

We sometimes have raccoon traffic to contend with on our neighborhood
sidewalks. One night I stopped to let what I thought was a dog cross my
path, and it stopped right in front of me to look up and seem to be saying,
"What are you looking at?" before it lumbered off toward the alley.

On Thu, Oct 18, 2018 at 12:20 PM Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:

> Trash pandas live wherever they damn well please, although they prefer
> holes in trees, I think. We have them hereabouts too, but they stay in the
> wooded area and mostly come out at night. Cute critters, but can be vicious
> and make a mess when they get into your trash.
>
> The Huntsville, AL minor league baseball franchise (AA, I think) put their
> name up for a popular vote and are now the Moon City Trash Pandas--with a
> nod to Guardians of the Galaxy.
>
> On Thu, Oct 18, 2018 at 10:14 AM Chad Wohlers <chad at satucket.com> wrote:
>
> > Hah!!!
> >
> > Just last night I was trying to get some sleep when I was rudely awakened
> > by noises outside on the porch. We have bird feeders out there, plus a
> suet
> > feeder attached to a post. I didn’t even have to think about what it was
> –
> > I knew – the racoons were back. There were two of them, trying to open
> the
> > cage which holds the suet and which is secured by a twist-em. I got up
> and
> > opened the door to the porch and they actually went away – after a few
> > nights of this they just look at you as if saying “Yeah, so?”. It was
> only
> > 35F or so outside so I wasn’t about to really go out on the porch ,
> dressed
> > (or undressed) as I was. They of course came back and I tried to just
> > ignore them, but finally did get up and chased them away again. When I
> got
> > up this AM about half the suet was gone, along with the twist-em.
> > Eventually they’ll go into hibernation for the winter, but it hasn’t
> > happened yet.
> >
> > And, BTW when I got up there was a thin coating of that dreaded white
> > stuff outside – first of the season. It’ll be gone by noon-time, but it’s
> > only a harbinger of things to come.
> >
> > Chad Wohlers
> > chad at satucket.com
> > Woodbury, VT    USA
> >
> > From: M J _Mike_ Logsdon
> > Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2018 8:10 AM
> > To: magdalen at herberthouse.org
> > Subject: [Magdalen] Where do they live?
> >
> > As I was leaving my bathroom this evening (last evening, I suppose,
> > actually) and turned off the light, I saw movement in my small apartment
> > backyard.  I'm used to seeing cats on the fence, so that's what I
> expected,
> > but movement is movement, so I needed to investigate.  Keeping the light
> > off so I could see, I was struck by three things:  (1) the cat I saw on
> the
> > fence was HUGE, (2) it didn't skitter down the other side of the fence
> > immediately as normal, and (3) the striped tail and the bandit mask
> revised
> > my opinion on the spot as to what I was witnessing.
> >
> > My Backyard Masked Animal showed no typical animosity as often seen on
> TV,
> > but that could've been because it was smart enough to know that a face
> > looking out of a dark room in a building was hardly gonna leap out and
> > challenge it.  It quickly, but smoothly, made its way down the other side
> > of the fence like the cats do, but with no sign of anxiety on its part
> > whatsoever.
> >
> > Yes, it was my first raccoon.  But being a city dweller where such things
> > are seldom seen, that shouldn't be a surprise.  And I did look up and
> find
> > the following, which explains a bit:
> >
> > "New habitats which have recently been occupied by raccoons (aside from
> > urban areas) include mountain ranges, such as the Western Rocky
> Mountains,
> > prairies and coastal marshes.  After a population explosion starting in
> the
> > 1940s, the estimated number of raccoons in North America in the late
> 1980s
> > was 15 to 20 times higher than in the 1930s, when raccoons were
> > comparatively rare.  Urbanization, the expansion of agriculture,
> deliberate
> > introductions, and the extermination of natural predators of the raccoon
> > have probably caused this increase in abundance and distribution."
> > (Wikipedia excerpt.)
> >
> > Its a reference beyond ("aside from") urban areas, which my area
> basically
> > is, but, still, -- where does such a clearly well-fed raccoon actually
> > live?  Grant you, I'm not terribly far from hundreds of miles of ag
> fields,
> > but something made this well-fed monster decide to "come into town and
> make
> > a night of it".  Would such a creature maybe have an actual life here, in
> > town, even in my neighborhood?  Doesn't bother me one whit.  I'm just
> > curious.
> >
> > And my Masked Friend makes the second "wild" animal I've encountered in
> > this part of my town.  Long ago, my route to work was detoured to the
> > extreme to make ample room for law enforcement and animal specialists to
> > deal with the (from what I remember) very young bear that somehow made it
> > into the neighborhood I actually now live in.  Raccoons, yes.  But bears?
> > They happen in Monterey and Carmel all the time, because they have
> heavily
> > wooded areas close nearby, and can actually be said to be situated within
> > same.  But Salinas Valley flatland?  All I can admit to right now, is
> that
> > we do have "mountains ranges" nearby.
> >
> > M J (Mike) Logsdon.
> >
> > "Aaugh[.]" -- Charles Brown.
> > "Avoid dull needles and use a soft cloth." -- E Kovacs.
> > "Because that's the kind of guy, I'm." -- C Reiner, "Your Show of Shows",
> > skit: "From Here to Obscurity".
> >
> >
> >
>


-- 
Scott R. Knitter
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois USA