My Nightly Visitors

What time of night did you capture this? Do they come often?

Fascinating! Makes a change from our foxes!

Do they mainly eat small critters and vegetable/fruits?

Sheila - This was about 11:00 PM. I was taking out the garbage and heard a lot of splashing going on. I went to take a look, and this guy was staring me down - 'watcha gonna do aboutit'! he was saying.

Karen - They are opportunistic omnivorous. They'll even take bubble gum. They mainly keep to themselves but if threatened they can be aggressive and dangerous. They'll rob bird nests, eat bugs, spiders, lizards, steal my carrots & they tore apart my neighbor's cat. She found pieces of him all over her garden. They can also transmit various lethal diseases.

Oh gross..poor cat. :(

As you say, best to be avoided.

Oh Poor cat ,I'm glad we don't have them :o(

They are 30 pound bears. I dont hate them,but dont welcome them as "wildlife". They wear out their welcome.
Those things will clean a pond out of fish and if you have plants with tubers in the pond..they will pull those up and eat also.

Yes, they are opportunists. Keep an eye on your pet dog or cat as well. Anything is fair game with these guys.

Such a shame they have to invade garden s when instead of taking away wild life areas the planners and government should give them their own habitat land as I am sure they would of been their first prior to land being taken for building. This is happening here now with habitat being bull dozed for house s and ugly sky scrapers when most sit empty for years.
Nice to see you allow them to share but I would be worried about the disease .

Yes, same thing here. They eat up all the slugs, so that's a good thing.

Thats great meat and veg they get then lol.

Apparently they seem to know the importance of a well balanced diet.

Better than most humans then 😊 pretty clever are nt they.

yeh, very clever - i grow the vegetables, they eat them. None for me! Very clever!

Lol they are just thinking of your waste line Paul hope this helps you.

https://youtu.be/RnRcBRk5Gjk

Great,

😊

...and what about stuffed cabbage rolls?

lol I bet they would love them to you ll have to put a menu out for them 🤣 If your worried about your cabbage s I would grow them in nice wooden container and cover that too with wire.

I'm sure they would devour them. Good idea with the cover. It should help with the cabbage moth as well. Thank You

Your welcome Paul. 😊

I have had three pet raccoons in my life. Bobs, Bobstoo, and Chuckles. They are best domesticated if you find them as kits. All three, that I've known, had lost their mother when she was hit by a car, and were still "nursing". They're funny and mischievious... and if cats and dogs are "smart" these guys have Phds. They can learn commands just like any dog or cat and will take the initiative! anticipating what you're going to ask/tell them to do! When Bobs had done something wrong and I would scold him he would look contrite and cross his little front paws across his back end in a parody of protection from a blow as punishment! AS IF?... I loved him so much that it was hard to correct him..and never struck him...and he knew how to push my buttons. In the wild they're little survivors and it's true that any wild animal deserves respect. as to diseases, the most common is from their feces left in attics or barns that harbour a paracite that causes respiratory disease in humans.
These days I may feed the little stray on my back porch but I don't like to have them around because of my pets...but I would challenge the "ripping apart" of other small animals. Never known them to be that aggressive. I would postulate that perhaps there are foxes, or even coyotes in the area that would take the domesticated animals as food. Also the not uncommon preasence weasels and stoats are not recognized as dangerous to our pets but they will kill as well. I've had a large weasel visit my yard two summers in a row...they have a howl that makes your hair stand on end! There are passive controls in place to keep the population in check...there is a large metropolitan population in Toronto... you can google that for info and interest. It's not a happy story.

I'm afraid to go near them because they are 'wild' and are known to fight and slow to back down. They seem to travel in small packs. Stray dogs could've been responsible for my neighbor's cat demise but I remember the death screams one fateful night. I heard they carry the rabies virus. I would never let them into my house. I once had sewer rats in my basement & squirrels in my attic. Both were a nightmare to get rid of. I had to resort to Decon from the Home Depot & my bee bee gun for the squirrels. They were chewing through wires and urinating all over my attic. That was a holy terror.

I'm right with you on the squirrels... can't seem to discourage them from my attic and every autumn there's a deluge of fieldmice who invade the basement and expand into the house.
You're right about not approaching a "pack" of raccoons, too...not something I would recommend, either. The kits I knew saw humans as their parent and protector.
I'm loath to use poison on the squirrels or mice, but necessity may reverse that too!
I have areas under my house (crawl space) that I'm too old to access and if I use poison, it seems that's the area they chose to die in. Had a friend recommend putting a steep sided pail with about 4 inches of water in the bottom as a trap for poisoned animals. They go to the water and fall in and can't get out. It's not an ideal solution but I'm desperate to be rid of them. Not healthy.

You seem pretty brave. The raccoons here just pass through once in a while, not really a problem. Can't blame them for wanting to splash around in the bird bath with this crazy hot weather we've been getting. I only see them once in a great while. Mice/Rats in the house do an immense amount of damage and are as you say health hazard. They multiply so fast, I don't know how else to get rid of them esp with young children & pets to care for.When I use 'Decon,' they seem die in the middle of the room on the floor. It works really well (cyanide based). It's not pleasant at all. I don't think I would poison a raccoon or possum. They are content with the outdoors.

I've never seen an o'possum here.. I understand they like persimmons. (farther south, Georgia, perhaps.) Have seen some footage on Youtube. Are they usual in NYS or are they moving north like the coyotes?
my worry about poison is that my big lazy cat might catch a poisoned animal and try to eat it. and I have a silly little dog who likes to graze... never know what he'll chew on next! What kind of controls would you suggest, Bathgate? I'm really serious about getting rid of the mice. I'm also squeemish about the finger crunching traps.. hard to set and not that effective...seem inhumane, but they have to go!

Yes, that's a valid concern too - the cat getting sick. The rats got into my basement while I was installing a new washer and had to cut the drainage pipe. It was like that movie "Willard." I had to cut down a tree to keep the squirrels out of the attic.

OMGGGGG!!!! No rats yet, thank good. I did see one in my town garden but it looked like a wood rat and it was well away from the house.
It's tempting to try and make pets of squirrels and Chipmunks but in your attic or even the basement they can make some terrible damage that is anything but easy to fix. I have a large black walnut that is too close to the house and it's a squirrel magnet..might consider getting rid of it but it takes so long for trees to grow, that I hate to cut them down. Maybe I'll prune it down, but not today. It's too close to my sugar maples..another good reason.

with fine dining & 5 star lodging, why would the squirrels ever want to leave? Black Walnuts is equivalent to filet mignon. Squirrels actually make fine pets if you have the time & patience to tame them. As with the kits, they are better started as babies.

I actually made a friend of a little red squirrel who had lost part of her tail...I called her Stumpy... she was carried away by an owl...and I saw it happen.

😪😥

Carried away to the wide blue yonder. Sorry about stumpy. Occasionally a hawk would swoop down and snatch a sparrow from my bird feeder. I guess that's nature's way of keeping things in balance.

Sad but true...