Wildlife: Heidi - Awaiting the Delivery, 1 by DreamOfSpring

DreamOfSpring wrote:
The characters this season are: Heidi the female raccoon who started it all, Trouble her adult [male we think] kid from last year, HRH aka Romeo the big male who showed up this spring, and 2 other unknows atleast 1 of which appears to be his current girlfriend.

Heidi has known me for a year or more and will come up to within 3-5 ft of me to eat. Trouble has known me more or less sense birth and will come right up to me at times, but he is still wild, and I have never touched him. The others are newcomers and until very recently viewed me with extreme distrust and kept there distance.

Last night, after Heidi and Trouble left, HRH came up very close to me (tentatively at 1st) to eat. He was roughly as close as Heidi usually gets. Since we've established that he's not likely to leave, I figured there's no real benefit in shuning him. I fed him and his girlfriend who eventually joined us.

I was very surprised that he came to me at all and even more so when he allowed me to take a few photos. By that time it was quite dark out. The camera (3-5ft away) motor made a whirring sound as the lense extended and retracted each time I turned it off and on. In the dark it shown a bright red light on him to adjust the settings for each photo and then set off a chain of some 4 or 5 flashes in rapid succession for each photo I took. I thought it amazing that any wild raccoon would stand still for that let alone 1 that until yesterday had viewed me with extreme distrust.

I suspect that he has become friendly so quickly in part by observing Heidi and Trouble, seeing that they spend time so close to me, get treats, and no harm comes to them.

Below is a photo of HRH and his girlfriend. HRH is on the left. The orange blobs are pieces of cantaloupe. There is also some honeydew behind them. I was hoping to get a photo of them eating the melons (which is very cute), but for someone the melon was not a popular menu item last night, nor was the bean with bacon soup or the baked potatoe skins. Last night everyone ordered the dog food entree.

Oh, and again last night Heidi was quite unwilling to allow Trouble to approach the water in either birdbath. I find this odd because once again she left without using any of the water herself. However, we have been experiencing a considerable drought just lately. It seems an odd coincidence that only recently and during the drought has she become so greedy about the water supply.

I felt a little sorry for Trouble. I had given them dry dog food. He was thirsty. The night before he was able to drink the water that had collected in the food dishes when the sprinkler ran. Last night I had emptied the water from the dishes to put table scraps in them. When Heidi left for the evening he waited just long enough to be sure she was gone, then made a bee line for the copper basin where he drank his fill.