Two nights ago, as Drew and I were settling to a quiet evening after putting the kids to bed, I heard some isolated commotion on the back deck. Drew chased the visitor off before I could get a look at him. When Drew heard the noise again v. early this morning, mid-sleep, and got up to investigate, he remembered to the grab the camera (for my sake), but was thwarted by the flash (above). So he quickly opened the sliding door and managed to catch three more shots:
One of the visitor's backside as he's making his getaway...
and two of the visitor himself. (It's a raccoon in case you couldn't tell.) In Drew's words, the visitor was "lounging on the railing, looking up at the stars, occasionally treating himself to a handful of seeds from the feeder". Though we have the feeder arm tightened down as far as it'll go, it can still be swiveled with, apparently, not much effort for easy access. Thankfully stealing from the bird feeder is not so big a nuisance as
scattered trash all over the driveway, which has been happening quite frequently to the next door neighbors. (You'd be amazed at how much trash their family of six can produce in one week.)
