Habitat Dislocation
I opened the door tonight to check something on our front porch, and was surprised to see a large raccoon climbing the cedar tree that nestles against it. Another raccoon was hulking down on the parking strip, seemingly standing guard. This is not exactly an everyday occurrence in our urban neighborhood, and I ran in to grab my camera.
When I noticed that the other one had come up and started climbing the cedar, I ran upstairs to our son’s bedroom and opened the window to get a better photo, and saw that there were three of them just hanging out on the tree branches. They started advancing towards me, either because they were interested in coming inside, or were simply preparing to eviscerate me while I squeezed off just one more shot.
Since the cedar is a convenience that our cats use to come up to the roof and importune my mother-in-law to open her bedroom window and let them in at night, we taped a note to the window reminding her not to open it tonight, or at least to make a friend-or-foe check before offering our hospitality.