Thieves!!

One of the last nights that Betsy, Pete, and Henry were here, most of us had gone to bed. Except Kathie, who with her usual sharp ears heard some commotion near the bird feeders. She decided to snap some pictures, even though it was almost pitch black. (Pete, who was in bed but not yet asleep, later wondered what all the flashing lights were about.) Conditions prevented focusing the images, and the flash didn't quite compensate for the distance and the dark. Nevertheless, with the help of PhotoShop, we were able to extract this story.

We knew that raccoons had discovered the bird feeders. Usually, I took the feeders in at night, but on this night, I had failed to do that. Turns out there was a mother and maybe as many as four babies. Mother found a way to get to the feeder, in spite of a squirrel baffle, as you see below. She also found a way to avoid tripping the perch that would shut off access to the sunflower seeds (this feeder is designed so that squirrels and other critters are supposed to be too heavy for the perch; birds can rest on it and easily feed, on the other hand). Evidently, she was busy scraping seeds onto the ground.


Then, below the mother and beneath the feeder, the little guys are busy enjoying a meal (and no doubt learning how clever mother is and filing that away for future raids of their own).


Here is a shot of the entire caper.


Thanks to my spouse, the budding nature photographer, for capturing this story. As for me, I'm keeping my supersoaker loaded with water for the next opportunity to disrupt such a raid. (But mostly, I'm keeping the bird feeders inside at night.)