From Sanctuary to Nursery

What I am blogging about here may not thrill that many people but hey, it's our property, and part of the reason for my animal blog and much of my social media posts is to share about living with wildlife, that we can coexist.

So, about 6 years ago the neighbour a couple doors over gave me his old doghouse.  He was putting it out to the sidewalk, asked me for help to move it, and I asked him to help me move it to our backyard.  It's not a massive house like a few that I went and looked at prior so this was perfect.  We don't have a dog so why the heck would we want a doghouse?  It was my intention to be a shelter, a place for a wild one to hide if need be.  We have opossums in the neighbourhood and with how harsh our weather can be in the winter, especially February, I've always wanted to offer them something.  I even went as far to pack it full of straw for warmth.

The house has seen a lot of action over the years.  Random nights I have put my trail cam out there pointed at the house to see what is going on.  Raccoons, skunks and a few opossums have used it for a day or two over the years.  No one has ever been long staying, calling it a "home" and that's okay; it's there for when an animal needs it.

Well this spring the doghouse has come in handy to an animal who really needs it.  A female raccoon has had her young inside.  I discovered this about two weeks ago when I was way down in the back of the yard after work one night.  I heard funny chattering coming from the box.  Check out this short video I took and you can hear them.

In this stream of photos you can see that they are secluded and out of sight.

A view from our back deck.

Almost near the shed.

Now we are at the side.  Squirrels currently are using that house in the back.

Little Al the screech owl used it for a day too!  Did you catch my blog the other day, he came back!

Now we are behind the shed.  There's the house (pardon the mess).  The yards that back onto ours all have garages and sheds so those neighbours cannot see what is going on back there either.  I only mention this because I don't know what any of them think about raccoons.  Raccoons used to live in that garage roof further back in the photo; they were in there for two years!  I told the home owner but he never did anything.  It's only us and the house right next to us, if they ever decide to go that far down into their yard, that could see them.  I use that broken piece of concrete stump for my trail cam.  Nothing can knock that over so the cam stays positioned.

Mother raccoons are very good mothers.  I've seen some great videos of them helping their young in difficult situations.  No one gets left behind.  I just did a quick YouTube search and cannot find the ones that I remember but here is a short one.

So with our mother here at home, I can tell by my camera footage that she's going to be a great mother too.  She doesn't go far from the doghouse or for very long either.  Late March we had a last blast of winter with a bit of snow and some bone chilling real feel temps of near -20 C.  

Mom spent over two full days in the doghouse, keeping her babies warm and fed.  I assume she went into a deep sleep, almost like a hibernation.  I cannot imagine laying in bed for over 48 hours and not getting up; that's how I see it.  Unlike some other animal species, the male/dad raccoon is basically a dead beat dad.  The old "wam, bam, thank you mam" and he's gone.  He doesn't hunt for food and bring it back to mom and the kids.

This guy here looks like a deadbeat dad, doesn't he?  I envision a beer or cigarette in his hand.  LOL!

Some cam images...

Coming home for the night.  She did not emerge again throughout the rest of the night.

A skunk wonders if there is room for him in there?

I won't post a lot of cam pics here but just enough so you get the idea of what's happening.  Here she is going into the box just before midnight.

She comes back out a couple hours later.

Probably went for a pee, to have a stretch and groom herself.

Then back to her young.

Out for a pee break I assume.

Ten minutes later back inside.

There hasn't been any other creatures coming through this stretch in the last week.  No skunks, no opossums and no other raccoons.  Just mom.

Occasionally I go down behind the shed to have a look and a listen.  I cannot wait to see a young one peeking out from that opening.  Right now mom has them tucked away in the furthest back corner of the house away from the opening.  I cannot see them but can hear their cries and grunts from that spot.

I hope for a photo opportunity or two before they vacate the house and our backyard as they get bigger and spread out.

The same mother raccoon as above taking a break in our yard.  Watching four kids is a lot of work.

Young raccoons are very cute and curious.  It was fun watching them play with our garden hose this one morning.  Even when we don't see them, some mornings there are signs that they were here with things moved about in the yard.

We often call our backyard "the sanctuary" but occasionally it turns into "the nursery" as wildlife have their babies here.  Our list isn't long but we've had a few including one house sparrow nest, three black-capped chickadee nests and twice squirrels have been born in one of the boxes.  

If you are in the mood for more reading, here is my blog about the time I was home when the chickadees fledged from the nest box.  It was an amazing thing to see and something I will never forget.

Come back for an update in a few weeks.  I will have one.  I promise!

Raccoons in Toronto

I've found it upsetting with the recent news posts about Rob Ford and his rants about Raccoons in Toronto. How is this a top story, and for 2 days in a row? I've yet to skim the news today and see if Rob Ford saw yet another Raccoon last night in his wanderings about his property. Here are some links to 680 news on this... Monday and Tuesday

I will not make this a personal attack on the man but seriously, take into consideration where he and his family live, backing onto park space, the Humber River flows a stone's throw beyond that, and they are within a very short walk to James Gardens and Lambton Woods (two parks I hold dear to my heart through the winter months). Rob Ford is almost our neighbour, I can be at his house within a 3 minute drive. If he and his family have such a huge fear of Raccoons, perhaps they should move?

He states there is a huge increase in Raccoon populations here in Toronto but doesn't have much in way of facts to back that up. Perhaps he watched "Raccoon Nation" which says Toronto has the highest Raccoon population in North America. I will have to ask him the next time I run into him at our local Tim Hortons.

If you open the Tuesday link above, you will see the city does not track wildlife, and there is no way to tell how well any species is doing. Nathalie from Toronto Wildlife offered a different opinion on the status of Raccoon in our city. But really, nobody knows for certain.

And with all wildlife, there are good breeding years and there are bad breeding years. This summer we have two families scurrying around at night, a mom and 4 kids, and another mom with 3 kids. For where we live, I think this is about average. Of course there are some straggling lone Raccoons which I suspect are the males who have nothing to do with the family order after mating.

Raccoons are clever creatures and have adapted well to living amongst us here in Toronto. Our green bins are a buffet to them. It blows my mind how many people put their bins out on Tuesday night (Wednesday is pick up day) and are enraged that some creature came along, dumped their bin in the middle of the night and helped themselves to the mass of food waste within. The nerve of those things!

We never put ours out before the morning of pick up. We don't have a garage or any inside place to store it, so the bin sits out on our front porch. We use an old car battery on top and see the signs of them coming around, trying to get in, the bag ends sticking out are shredded but the bin is never spilled. Is this a mind set of humans, a habit that goes back generations, and they just cannot change it? Our fathers and grandfathers put the garbage out the night before, it's even in the cartoons we watched as kids. Heaven forbid having to get the bin out to the curb at 7am when one doesn't normally wake up till 8. I guess we are fortunate that the truck doesn't hit our street until well into the afternoon.

With all the Raccoons I see around our neighbourhood, they all have different personalities. Some are bold, some are skittish and some go either way depending on my approach. I've never EVER in all my life have come across an aggressive Raccoon. I guess the worst one was an injured one I trapped late one night last December, see the story here. That poor guy had every right to be pissed off at me. The family with the four kids, have two of each of these very different personalities. Two high tail it quick upon first sight of us, and the other two are very curious (I don't call them bold as they are just young).

It is my belief that when you show respect, respect will come back to you, even with the wild ones. Don't fuck with them and they won't fuck with you. If you yell and try to hit them with a broom or some other object, of course you will see a side of them that Rob Ford's nightmares are made of.

We live in our homes, but the outdoors is theirs. They use our walks, our gardens, our driveways in their evening searches for food and water. They sleep in our trees. Once again, if this kind of stuff bothers a person, then maybe they should move into an apartment building. It's unfair to label them as threats when they are on our properties and taking advantage of what we provide for them, like it or not.

A few of our neighbours grow grapes every summer. The Raccoons love grapes and know exactly when those things are ready to eat. It pisses these people off that they come in the middle of the night, pick away at their bounty of fruit, eating only the insides of the grapes and leaving the skins. The one guy gave up after a few years and tore out all his grape vines. The other guy would sit up most of the night, sometimes till 4 or 5am, waiting for the Raccoons to come, and he'd have a stick or a broom. But the Raccoon is the smarter beast, watching in the darkness, waiting patiently, because it knew the man was not a creature of the night, and eventually he would tire and go to sleep. It was always the case, the guy would eventually shut out the back light, go inside, to bed. A few hours later he would come outside to the mess and be enraged at the masked bandits. Both these men are dead now. The wife of the later still lives in that house and still grows grapes. She carries the tradition of trying to fight these monsters and shares the hatred of them only because they eat her grapes. There are days where I am not proud to say "I'm human, just like them".

I love the creatures as I do all wildlife. But that doesn't mean I biased in my blog here. People just need to be smart about things. Protect your green bins, as I said, it's a buffet to them. Inspect your homes periodically for wear and tear which something like a Raccoon, Squirrel, Opossum, etc may see as potential shelter and a place to raise a family. One cannot get upset if they grow fruits and vegetables, which may be natural food sources to the wildlife around, and the stuff gets eaten.

We have bird feeders and some come out to clean up under the feeders at night. They also love the bird baths and basins during the dog days of summer. Water is harder for creatures to find than food. We enjoy seeing them play in the baths, if we are lucky enough to spot them at dusk or dawn.

This young one took a cedar chip from my garden. Oh my goodness, the horror! Bad Raccoon! LoL!

Some say Raccoons are changing and not becoming true nocturnal creatures. I disagree. In my experiences, for the most part they are still creatures of the night. I do find for a short spell in the summer when I will see families out and about, mom and the kids. I'm guessing this is in the days after all the kids finally leave the "den" (where they were born), mom isn't nursing them as much, and they are trying to find food to feed a family of 4 or 5 now instead of just mom. But as I said, this is just my guess. It's what I see around here for not much more than a couple weeks, families out before sun set, or still up after sun rise. A few of these shared photos of mine are from the longest days of the year, where I was fortunate enough to see these creatures around 6am. I had the ISO cranked on my camera to get the shots, which may seem like mid-day.

We seem to have an exception to this in a small lone Raccoon we named "Annie". She seems to come out a little earlier than the others, or is up after the others have turned in for the day. She's only been around for a few weeks and we can only guess that maybe she's an orphan? She can't tell us so we can only assume. She gets out looking for food and water before the others get to it first. Or she's still out looking for it after they've gone to bed. Her size is comparable to the young ones that we see following mom still.

Annie may come off as bold but I think it's more about how hungry she is. There are times when I'm filling the feeders and she's hanging around, waiting to spot stuff being spilled as not every peanut makes it into the ring. And there are times she's running off quick at the slightest movement from us or something else nearby. We don't hand feed her or wave peanuts at her to entice her. But she knows where the food is and at times can be seen in the garden beneath our feeder pole (the feeders are 12 ft or so above ground with a metal umbrella on the pole to keep Squirrels and Raccoons from getting at the feeders). We don't chase her, we don't yell and throw things at her. We just sit back and enjoy the sight of her if she hangs around for a bit. I don't see anything wrong with that.

Here is a video of Annie from last Saturday. I couldn't sleep and decided to fill the bird feeders and baths before Angie got up. It was around 6am. Annie snuck up on the picnic table while I was doing the baths and knocked my seed cup over. I figured "finders keepers" and let her have at it. I had our little Canon Power Shot camera in my pocket and took this short video. The camera has great zoom and I was not in her face. I hate that I feel I should spell everything out here loud and clear. Ugh! Anyways, click here if you would like to see little orphan Annie.

And for the record, we don't see her every day/night. Sometimes 3 or 4 days pass before the next visit during our waking hours. She knows there can be food found here but she is not reliant upon us. As with the other Raccoons, she is smart and an opportunist. She's figured this all out on her own at a very young age and I suspect she will have a good long life for a Raccoon in our area.

So, I ask that those with this fear of these creatures coming around their homes to sit back and think for a moment, maybe they do a better job at critter proofing their homes, maybe they can learn to live with these wild creatures in their areas? The city is full of all kinds of wildlife, it's not just us humans and that's it. I'd like to believe most of us would like to keep it that way too!