As I was heading out the door to pick up Eagle from school, I saw an animal in the back yard. This time it was one with a furry tail. The creature was standing near the spot where I saw the opossum the other day. Are we becoming a wildlife corridor?
In the sixteen years we have lived here, we’ve seen chipmunks, squirrels, a woodchuck, mice, a vole, many rabbits, a hawk, a pair of cardinals, crows, sparrows, a goldfinch, chickadees, and doves in our back yard. Yet, until this month we’ve never observed an opossum or the animal in the photos below.
Below is my first, run for the camera shot through the back porch screen. This photo shows the classic raccoon tail. This poor juvenile was looking thin, because she’d lost a lot of fur. She was scratching herself determinedly.
I went outside cautiously to get a better shot.
The shutter noise of my phone camera disturbed the raccoon. So she took a stance. I was behind a fence, twenty feet away. She let me know she wanted me quiet. From her bedraggled look, I’d say she’s feeling blue, because of her mange.
Have you seen animals you were surprised lived in the city? I suppose raccoons are not rare in cities, I just hadn’t seen one in my back yard before. ¡Olé! –Rebecca
Poetry Challenge: One day left to turn in your flower poems, see the details here: October Poetry Challenge/Reto poético de octubre.
This post celebrates Six Word Saturday and Past Squares #22: blue.
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Fake Flamenco 
Hi, Rebecca. Racoons are regular garbage can raiders in our South Florida community. I still don’t understand how this tropical place supports both traditional northern creatures like squirrels and bunnies AND iguanas! Have a great weekend! ~ Kelly
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Thanks for your message, Kelly. The trash can raiding was common in the midwest until we started using the standardized cans the trucks pick up with a mechanical arm. I bet the escaped pythons in FL like the variety on the menu. 😉
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Poor thing does look awful. I’ve seen a few juvenile raccoons in my yard, but not often. The dogs always want to investigate!
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Thanks for your comments, Trent. The raccoon was walking with stiff legs and kept stopping to scratch. It looked sickly and gaunt and just wanted to sleep. I was worried it had rabies, and there are a lot of kids, cats and dogs about. My husband called Animal Control. The person was out within the hour to observe the animal and diagnosed mange. I saved a bit of drama for the comments!
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lol, yes, the biggest drama was in the comments. Glad it wasn’t rabies.
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🙂 Mee too!
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oh she is going through hard times – guess though too risk to feed as then she will be upturning and getting into everything
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Well, I’m not surprised how kind-hearted you are Becky. I would not feed a wild animal, especially a raccoon that lives near my house because they are known to burrow into homes and live in the walls and they can have rabies. Evan’s aunt had an enormous raccoon family that moved into her attic and did thousands of dollars of damage. Eek!
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Ah yes had a suspicion they were not one to attempt to care for
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It looks a bit pathetic.
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Yes, poor thing. I hope the mange takes its course and it can have a nice warm winter in a hollow tree.
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I hope so too. Humans have destroyed many natural habitats for the animals and now they are forced to invade human territory
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Yes, Sadje. Sad, but very true. We welcome the animals in the garden, but the mice in the house have to go!
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Mice, lizards and cockroaches too.
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Yes, none of those are welcome inside. We are lucky to have a cold climate, fewer creatures invade our abodes. : ) (no lizards, rare cockroaches)
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That’s good.
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Oh wow! We have coyotes, rabbits, and plenty of things that slither and crawl.
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Coyotes! I’ve only seen one, on a fire road hike in Marin County. Coyotes would help a lot with our rabbit and mouse overpopulation! 🙂
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I haven’t seen any in a while, but with cooler temps I will be out more. More chances of seeing them. 😃
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Do you see them during the day out in the desert?
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More so at dusk or evening, if I am out later. I hear them howling more than I see them. 🌔
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The howling sounds very atmospheric! Very cool.
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It is very cool!
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Life cannot be easy for animals living in the city. We have a wild cat that prowls our courtyard during the night.
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Yes, we humans squeeze out the creatures that have lived here long before humans arrived on the scene. I wonder if it is a cougar or a lynx. Beware pets out late at night!
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Your poor raccoon seems pretty exotic to us. We stick with rabbits and badgers and squirrels in the garden.
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Badgers could tear up a garden I imagine, as they dig. They’re rather fierce too. I don’t envy that.
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I’ve never heard of a badger-related injury, luckily.
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I don’t know, they can be quite fierce. They’re the mascot of the University of Wisconsin!
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Ah well, American badgers …. 😉
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At first, I thought it was a very-furry cat, or a small bear. I’ve never seen a racoon that’s brown. Poor thing: I think it wants some food!
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Thanks, Rebecca. I wasn’t sure either when I first saw it. The Wildlife Management worker said it looked that way because it was a juvenile and it had lost a lot of fur to mange.
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I’ve lived most of my life out in the country, but I spent a few years in my young adulthood in the small city of Lumberton, North Carolina. The surprise on my concrete patio one day was a rattlesnake. Not good!
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Oh boy, talk about an unwelcome visitor. Did you show it the door (gate) or did it find its own way out? Thanks for your story, Janet!
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Like the photos, is mange a problem for wildlife. Here in the U.K. it mainly affects the Red Fox and is a really nasty condition .
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Mange is most common in November in the Midwest US, I’ve read. It affects both wildlife and domestic pets like cats and dogs. Thanks for your comments .
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How about Scorpions in my morning shower? I spotted them each time as I was leaving the cubicle, so I have showered with something deadly! A bit James Bond, I reckon.
It wasn’t at home, thankfully, but three separate times in Jordan.
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My goodness, that would delay my bathing! Might just warn people to stay upwind from me. 😉
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That was my strategy after the second one! But I caved in after 5 days in the desert. We weren’t smelly at all, just red with dust and your skin gets so itchy…..
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Yes, after 5 days the sand would be everywhere! Time to bathe (perhaps with shoes?) ; )
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Raccoons are sweet but they tore some of our grape vines down
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That is a bit destructive, sorry to hear that. Working at getting the grapes?
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They are great grape pickers.
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Darn them with those opposable thumbs! My mom’s grapes would get decimated by them where they used to live near a wooded area.
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Here where I live there are a lot of wild cats, and now there are also a lot of foxes coming into the city, but I havent had one come into my garden, although I did have 2 wild cats come in my garden. Xx
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I bet Nitro the Wonder Dog has something to say about the wild cats in his yard. The foxes may stay away because of his scent!
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I was told that a raccoon out and about in the daytime may have rabies. A plague of rabies passed through here a few years ago.
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Exactly, that is why I was nervous and we called animal control for their opinion. They came out within the hour, took a look and proclaimed it mange. I was very relieved!
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Nice encounter., Poor thing scratching away…
(We just saw a possum in the house n Cuernavaca…)
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Thanks for your comments. A possum in the house, surprise!
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In the garden. We were having a drink with my wife on the balcony, and the possum just went by on the wall and got into the buganvillea. Just like that.
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My, that’s a bold possum. I thought they were more shy, playing possum and all that!
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Haha! Many of the houses around are only week.end houses and I’ve never seen anyone next door. Plus there are many very green gardens all around. I guess it just felt safe.
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Nice when animals feel safe enough to walk around unguarded. I’ve heard it is that way in the Galapagos since malicious humans have not visited for a century.
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Or the many animals that went rampaging in the cities during the beginning of COVID when humans were locked up?
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Good example! Perhaps we humans could extrapolate a lesson from that? 😉
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Definitely.
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I saw deer right smack in the middle of our town. We have about 56,000 people in the city I live in an entire family of deer was right in the middle of town helping themselves to some bark. Cars were stopped taking pictures, everything stopped for a moment and it was amazing. I also have had raccoons in our apartment dumpster. Great pictures!
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Thanks for your comments, Rose. There are deer that have made a home in Minneapolis near where my parents live! Here we have a lot of turkey and crane sightings that stop cars. Glad we haven’t crowded out nature entirely. : )
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