fenchurch | Raccoon!!!

rackham and I were upstairs watching the season premiere of Mythbusters tonight, when the light on the back deck flipped on (we have it on a motion sensor) and our cat Numfar started growling. I came at the sliding glass doors from the side, walking through the kitchen so I wouldn't startle whatever was there, and sure enough... it was one of our neighborhood raccoons, once again trying his luck with our birdfeeder (not that he could get anything, since our feeder has a springloaded cage around it, to close down if anything larger than a bird tries to get in).

I grabbed the camera and got a bit of video footage and tried snapping a few still shots (even with the porchlight, it was still pretty dark and I was also shooting through both glass and a screen door). Raccoons really know no fear. He came right up to the door and stood on his hind legs to get a better look at us... all while Numfar was absolutely beside herself trying to get through the glass, growling and digging at the door. I'm not sure what she thought she'd do if she got through... that raccoon was probably about three times her size and would have taken her apart.

Anyway, here are a couple of snapshots of the raccoon... they're essentially in black and white, because that was the only way I could get them to be visible at all (it really was quite dark out there).

Here he is approaching the door. If you squint and stare long enough, you can see a dark blob in the lower right corner that is Numfar having conniptions.