A month or so ago, my son was on the back porch looking through binoculars to see what he could see on our acre of land.
Unbeknown to me, a raccoon had set up house in a hole of a large tree.
Well, raccoons aren’t normally friendly creatures (or so I’ve heard). They also scavenge trash cans and find bird feeders that they can rummage through. Fortunately for us, our trash cans are inside the garage and the bird feeders are quite high ~ even our most ambitious squirrel has not been able to get to our bird feeders.
Every day we watched the racoon as he would scamper down and head to a watering hole on the other side of our back fence. He was quite consistent in his actions.
One day, we noticed that the racoon was not making as much movement as before. It seemed to have settled into the tree hole. Hmmm … I told my son that I thought this was a female racoon and so I named it Germaine.
Raccoon in Tree
Germaine eventually came down to go back to the watering hole in the back. A couple of times it lumbered towards our house and I yelled “Germaine ~ you can’t come this way” and she immediately scampered back to the tree. Of course, I don’t know how often she tried but the two times I saw her she appeared scared enough to return to her place.
One afternoon, my son said “Mom, you have to see this.”
Germaine had had 3 babies.
As the babies grew, we watched as they tried to scamper down the tree only to be pulled back into the hole by mama Germaine. She was quite adamant that these babies were not yet ready to head down the tree. They were persistent but she overcame their persistence.
A couple weeks went by and there were no raccoon sightings. Every morning, afternoon and evening we searched for the little raccoon family but they were not to be found.
A few weeks later, my son (who seems to be looking for wildlife all the time) called out again: Mom!
I hurried over and walking along the edge of our property was Germain with, not three, but five baby raccoons behind her. She lumbered along and passed the tree that she at one time had made her home ~ onward to the back of our property.
Since then, we haven’t seen her although there have been sightings on some of our neighbors properties.
Raccoon in Tree
This was the first time we had raccoons on our property. People I spoke with told me it was probably a female who would give birth then move on. They were right.
