New Photos
November 16, 2007
| I had set up in the still-damp mud of the creek-bed to see if I could photograph birds at the remaining large puddle upstream of the footbridge. I'd already switched to the 400mm lens and had the monopod on to brace it. I had taken some mediocre images of a Lincoln's Sparrow, slightly better ones of a male cardinal in the brush to one side of the creek when I heard something crunching through the fallen leaves...and a gray shape moved through the undergrowth. A mammal, out in daylight! | |
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| Sure enough, it came down to the puddle and started hunting for food. It seemed not to notice me; I was downwind of it and as still as I could be while taking pictures. It looked like a young one to me--smaller than many we've seen, with a shorter (in proportion) and less bushy tail, though it seems to have a thick winter coat on the body. It turned over stones in the water and along the edge, then began feeling around with its "hands", sometimes seeming to look at what it was doing, and sometimes not. | |
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Though we've seen a lot of raccoon sign, and the occasional dead raccoon, this is the first one I've had a chance to photograph. And the first one I've ever watched in a completely natural setting--not eating birdfeed or scraps on someone's deck or pillaging a trash can, or exploring a flowerbed, but out in the wild, acting like a true wild animal. Finally, though, a gust of wind swirled through in the "wrong" direction. I hadn't moved or made a noise, but the raccoon immediately stopped what it was doing, left the water, and trundled away. |
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