[ValleyNature] raccoons, mice, owls

[James W. Wolford]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Andrew Steeves <andrew at gaspereau.com>
> Date: October 7, 2009 11:32:33 PM ADT
> To: naturens at chebucto.ns.ca
> Subject: [NatureNS] Raccoons, mice, owls
> Reply-To: naturens at chebucto.ns.ca
>
> When we were in Keji in September they were having a particularly  
> hard time with aggressive raccoons around the campsites. We kept  
> all food in the car at night, and even at that you could hear the  
> bandits snorting and fighting the very minute you extinguished the  
> fire and crawled into your sleeping bag, overturning everything and  
> anything in search of a snack. They sounded more like storybook  
> trolls or movie aliens than neighbourly mammals. The rude little  
> beasts have a taste for toothpaste, one of the park attendants told  
> my wife, and think nothing of trying to get into tents if they  
> sniff out something interesting.
>
> At first light this morning, biking to work, I saw a raccoon  
> peeking out from a tree den in Noggins Woods. He seemed just fine  
> to me, up there where he was supposed to be, neither fighting over  
> toothpaste or swarming seniors. A few meters farther down the trail  
> I stopped to checked out a small pile of dirt where last week I'd  
> watched a little mouse madly digging out a hole in the soft loam of  
> the trail's edge. He was all tail and hind legs, dirt flying, until  
> he disappeared down his hole. Nothing doing there today, so I  
> looked up to carry on, just in time to catch sight of a large,  
> silent blur of feathers on the edge of my field of vision. A barred  
> owl! First one I've spotted in there this year. I watched him up in  
> the hemlocks for another twenty minutes or so, making myself good  
> and late for work.
>
> Andrew Steeves ¶ Wolfville

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