A night visitor
We keep three galvanized trash cans on our back porch to supply our bird feeders. One holds peanuts (shelled and unshelled, niger, safflower seed, and any other specialty items on hand. The middle can holds regular seed mix, which we sprinkle on the ground and in a shallow dish near the feeding station. Some birds, like our favorite dark-eyed juncos, are ground feeders. Spreading seed on the ground also keeps some of the larger (and lazier) birds, like mourning doves, from dominating the hopper feeders. The third barrel is for fine sun flower chips. The chip feeder is the favorite for most birds.
We learned to put a large rock on the peanut barrel, but didn’t have much trouble with the sunflower chip barrel until last summer. Since then we occasionally get visits from a marauding raccoon. We could put a rock on that barrel, but figured the raccoon needs to eat too. We have thought about leaving a dish of peanuts out for the raccoon, but haven't done that yet.
The chip barrel was almost empty last night, Saturday, November 18, 2006. We picked up a 50 pound bag of chips at The Backyard Bird Center that afternoon, but hadn’t put them in the barrel yet. At midnight I heard a crash. Samba barked once, but then went back to sleep. I decided to investigate and found our raccoon friend at the scene of the crime. My camera was at hand, so I flipped on the porch light and poked the camera through the vertical blinds for a few pictures. The porch light hasn’t previously concerned the coon. (I’ve watched him/her before.) Last night, however, the critter was spooked, whether due to the porch light or the range finding light on my camera I’m not certain. It went back and forth between the can and the edge of our porch several times, but couldn’t find its comfort zone and after a few cautious minutes ambled away.
I was shooting through the screen. And, given the low light levels, was using 1-second exposures. Considering that, the pictures came out remarkably well. A testament to the effectiveness of Canon’s shake control feature.
