. but today in the mail was a news article...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

well.. they are cute to me... from a distance... perhaps as a Disney kid and fess Parker's Davy Crockett's hat.. he was married to a TN Hawkins gal btw .. so I guess I was locked in there....
here's a picture I took of one here... home invader



when I had a pond first on the roof.. I was alerted to a raccoon by the cat about 2 AM as it was comming down the circular stairway into the house.. off the 5th floor roof.. the next day it came down and into the kitchen... and brought 2 packs of ramen noodles up to the roof.. opened one up .. and left them sitting there... the next morningas I was parking the car I saw a cwroud of people on the sidewalk taking pictures.. and thought it was strange.. the toue busses don't usually work my area.. but it was folks going to work and stopping to view a family off raccoon s on a first floor window ledge ..maybe about 5 young ones.. they were all awaiting the animal control folks.. guess they were relocatd..

Well, I had crab legs for dinner tonight. Makes a big mess what with all the cracking of the shells to get the meat. But they taste really yummy. I took all the picked out shells and tossed them in the side yard under some shrubs. I bet the racoons have a great time chewing on them.

Yeah! They'll be looking for more crab shells for a long time, I bet.

They are cute & I love to hear their trilling but they don't belong in a school & they can be quite dangerous. If you forget about rabies they still have awesome teeth & nails. We should remember they are wild creatures & should enjoy them at a distance.

Ha-ha. I went outside and looked at were I dumped the crab shells and they are all tossed around so I know the racoons were in them last night. I bet they were frustrated as those shells must have smelled really good but there really wasn't much left there too eat.

Must have kept them busy for a while though trying to get every single morsel they could.

Another recently placed cake of suet for birds disappeared last night. Since the suet thing was left open, I thought maybe a coon got it. I had wired it closed. Something feasted, that's for sure!

Sounds like a coon with those talented hands of theirs. What else could open a wired shut suet cage? Linda, maybe you ought to get a padlock!

I find that the ravens and the crows are pretty darn good at opening the suet cage.

I really need a suet holder that locks up good. I don't begrudge the other wildlife getting some suet, but I don't want them to gobble up the whole thing! Guess I'll check the hardware or feed store and see what doohickies they have that can keep those things closed. This time of year the female birds need the suet because they'll be nesting...and maybe other kinds of wildlife need it, too....but they'll have to share it.

This guy can sure pack away the suet, the male and female have been regular visitors this winter.

Very nice photo of the Pileated Margaret. I love them! They're so cool.

Thanks Ann I love them too, I just wish that they wouldn't take chunks out of my trees!!

Yeh, & those suckers CAN take some chunks out of trees. Their beak is like a darn hatchet!

mcash70 said:This guy can sure pack away the suet, the male and female have been regular visitors this winter.

I'm jealous! The pileated near me won't come into my yard at all. BUT my red-bellied woodpeckers have loved my suet feeder and my sunflower feeder, as have both the downy & the hairy. And one day I saw a yellow-bellied sapsucker on my maple tree. Had never seen one of those before.

Mary, I get the Downy, Hairy, Yellow-bellied sapsucker, the Northern Flicker, and I am pretty sure that the other day I saw the eastern version, the Yellow-shafted, which really surprised me, it was gone before I realized it had a red nape, I am so used to seeing them in my yard that I hadn't been paying close attention.

The female Pileated was shy., not a very good photo of her.

LindaTX8 said:I really need a suet holder that locks up good. I don't begrudge the other wildlife getting some suet, but I don't want them to gobble up the whole thing! Guess I'll check the hardware or feed store and see what doohickies they have that can keep those things closed. This time of year the female birds need the suet because they'll be nesting...and maybe other kinds of wildlife need it, too....but they'll have to share it.

You'll probably lose the whole thing. I've lost seed cages, suet cages and suet feeders, including the food inside them.

I started using a plastic coated twist tie to keep the seed cake inside the cage, but I started to lose the cake and the feeder, so I quit using the twist tie and just lost the seed cake and the cage was left.

Every morning I look outside and see the new suet cake gone, so I stopped putting out suet cakes (for now). We're short on cash right now and it kills me to put a fresh cake out in the morning and have to put another fresh cake out the next morning. There is still suet cake available right when it gets dark, so I know the birds aren't eating it up till it's gone.

We have peanut feeder and a sunflower feeder, which are both the squirrel buster brand and I don't have any problems with those.

Well, I started using small plastic wire ties (the kind DH used to use for electrical work) for a little while now. So far the critters haven't managed to break them. They keep the cage fastened securely to the chain link fence and one keeps the cage closed. I just cut the one tie that keeps the cage closed when I need to put another suet cake in. Then I put a new one on when the suet cake is in place. Of course, I'm still replacing the suet on the far side of the yard too often. The other one on the back fence is used up more slowly...maybe because it's not very far from the house. Obviously, the night critters are still raiding the far one, even though they haven't managed to figure out how to break the ties...yet. I know how you feel about putting a new suet cake out and next day it's gone...it's not that cheap, you know? I asked DH to check on maybe getting them cheaper online...he's good at that sort of thing. Yay for cheap!

Marilyn You could take the suet cakes in at dusk and put them back out in the morning. That's what we have to start doing in the spring when the bears wake up.