Coonz in the 'Hood

Update 6-6-11: I've had a couple people suggest to me that I should use the "Coke & fly bait" recipe to get rid of these backyard raccoons. "Won't get 10 feet before he drops over" was one of the comments. In case any of you are wondering why I don't just poison these pests it's because I absolutely refuse to use poison in any way, shape or form. Have you ever seen an animal that's been poisoned? It's not a pretty sight. And then, what do I do with that dead, poisoned animal? Because any creature that feeds on carrion will be poisoned too. I know there are people who don't care whether a coyote, crow, or vulture dies either, but there are all kinds of bugs, mammals, and birds (including bald eagles!) who eat dead things. Nope, no way, no sirree......no poison in MY backyard! There are enough wild spaces around here far away from my yard where I can let a raccoon go free and that's just the way it's going to be.

For the first time in as long as we've lived here, raccoons have become a problem in the backyard. There was one particular birdfeeder that was continually being knocked down. No matter how far out I would hang it on a really skinny branch, I'd get up in the morning and the feeder would be laying on the ground. So I called up my neighbor to see if he would loan me his Havahart trap and the very first nite we put it out, we caught this big guy! (His love of the birdseed with peanuts in was all it took.)

So I hung that birdfeeder back up again and dang, it wasn't 2 days later and I woke up to see the birdfeeder on the ground again in the morning. (Fortunately it's a Wild Birds Unlimited tube feeder, so the thing is virtually indestructible.)

So, out came the trap again and the next morning I woke up to find the trap turned over on its top with no raccoon inside. This smart raccoon knew that if it could get the cage rolled over on its top, the door could be opened for a speedy escape. Obviously one smart critter.......

OK, so on to Plan B -- a fencepost on either side of the cage to keep it from rolling over. Yeah, that'll do it! But the coon was smarter than that -- for the next 4 mornings, I woke up to find the food dish empty but so was the trap! This raccoon was clever enough to know not to step on the plate in the bottom of the cage that would make the door snap closed. #*%&!!

So yesterday while mowing the lawn (plenty of time to think......) I came up with the plan of putting the food dish under the cage, so the raccoon wouldn't have easy access to the food and would most likely have to step on the trip-plate while trying to get at the food through the bottom mesh of the cage. And then I also added 2 posts through the cage to secure it from tipping over and to keep the coon from being able to lift the cage from the outside to get at the birdseed dish.

The first thing I did when I got up this morning was look out the kitchen window.......Yes!! Gotcha clever raccoon!
It's nice to know that I'm smart enough to outwit a raccoon (and it only took a week!)

This raccoon is much smaller than the one we caught last week and a little bit different colored too. I think maybe she's an older (therefore, smarter) female. She wasn't the least bit excited about riding in the back of the pick-up.
A few miles away, we arrived at her new home. Mr. Johnson got to do the honors. Ready, set......

GO!!

She blasted out of that cage like her tail was on fire! I had no idea raccoons could run that fast!

This is the last we saw of her -- still barrelling down the trail towards what I hope will be her new home. Maybe this will teach her a lesson about avoiding birdfeeders at least......

Random Photos

I've neglected this blog for far too long, but really, nothing particularly exciting has been going on with me lately besides working and knitting. My sissy and I did have a 3-day getaway last weekend and I've got some pictures to post from that (hopefully this week yet). But in the meantime, here are a few pictures I've taken in just the last couple days.

While I was gone over the weekend, Mr. Johnson reported that we had a new visitor in the backyard. As luck would have it, that visitor showed up again a short while ago and was more than willing to come right up to the back door for a photo op. This is the first time we've seen a raccoon in the backyard. Hopefully this busy little critter doesn't decide to start destroying my birdfeeders!

The weather has been quite lovely for the entire month of October. Lots of "summer" birds still hanging around here still including grackles, red-winged blackbirds and robins. This one was trying to get a drink from the nearly empty birdbath on the deck. They're such pretty birds!

And for the first time since I put up the new aquarium, Penny has finally discovered the perfect spot for watching the fish!

Sunday Morning Birding

This morning Mr. Johnson and I attended a bird hike sponsored by the local Audubon Society to look for warblers and whatever else we could find. Our destination today was Indian Heights Park, a mostly undeveloped jewel of the Rochester parks system, as we found out this morning. This park is located at the dead end of a residential neighborhood right in the middle of suburban northwest Rochester. After parking our cars in the paved parking lot, we headed up the dirt trail. We were searching for warblers again this morning, but they were mostly absent (except for 1 female American Redstart spotted late in the hike). We did hear the Great Crested Flycatcher, Yellow-Throated Vireo and Eastern Wood Pewee (my FOY), in addition to the usual chickadees, cardinals, and bluejays.

Shortly up the trail, I spotted something bright yellow on a fallen down tree. "Hmmmm," I thought to myself, "I hope that's what I think it is........" I headed off-trail for a closer look at what turned out to be my first personal discovery of Chicken of the Woods (sulphur shelf) mushrooms. Charlie, another birder with our group, confirmed this ID and on the way back to the car, the mushroom you see on the top left side of this log went home with me for this evening's supper (it was delicious!) I'm thinking I may have to make a stop back here on my way home from work tomorrow to collect the rest for my freezer.

There was a huge abundance of raspberry bushes along most of the trails in this park. I also made a note to myself to return with Mr. Johnson and berry-picking buckets in a few weeks to reap some of that delicious bounty.

We did see a few downy and hairy woodpeckers, but none of the pileated woodpeckers who were responsible for creating the holes in this oak tree.

At the end of the trail, we found this scenic spot overlooking most of the eastern Rochester skyline. In this photo are Mr. Johnson, and our trip leaders, Terry (red shirt) and his wife Joyce (lite blue shirt).

This is a view of Silver Lake.

In the middle of this park is an old quarry. It wasn't a large quarry and probably wasn't used for too long. It's quite overgrown now and we did find some evidence that it's been used in the past for a teen party spot.

Another cool thing we found was this intact skull with some bones and fur nearby. After further investigation of the bones, we decided that this was probably a raccoon. Unfortunately, I didn't have a plastic bag along with me, so this skull stayed where it was (even though I really wanted to bring it home). Maybe tomorrow when I'm fetching those mushrooms.......

There were quite a few wildflowers blooming and here are some of the ones we saw.

False Solomon's Seal

Vetch and Wild Columbine

Black Snakeroot

Another look at the Black Snakeroot (with some flowers blooming)

Bloodroot

An unidentified daisy (I should have taken pics of the leaves!)

The flowers were really small - only about a half to three-quarters of an inch across

Here's a busy bumblebee pollinating some raspberries for me!

We were almost back to the parking lot when we spotted this flower. It was one that none of us had ever seen before, but after doing some checking on the internet, I'm reasonably certain that it's a Star-of-Bethlehem. It was a beautiful little plant and I wouldn't mind finding some of these to plant in my own backyard some day.

Haven't seen many butterflies yet this year, but we also saw this pretty little Red Admiral taking advantage of the nectar in this nice dandelion (another reason to save dandelions -- a nectar source for early season butterflies!)

Glad you could come along on this birding hike with me. Even though we didn't see many birds, we saw a lot of other cool things and it just goes to show that time spent outdoors is never wasted.....especially when you keep your eyes open for the unexpected treasures nature has to offer.

Old Dog Learns a New Trick

Remember a couple weeks ago when I was so frustrated with my inability to upload videos to my blog? I asked for help in my comments and Larry from The Brownstone Birding Blog mentioned that he was having good luck using Windows Movie Maker. So this afternoon, after searching my hard drive and finding out that I do indeed have this program on my computer, I did a little bit of experimenting. Results are shown below:

Now hopefully I'll remember what I did for next time!

Thanks Larry!