OT - Watching a crazy and funny act of nature today ! ....

[UpstateGC]

There's been a rogue racoon that's been bothering me by his destructive habits at my house out in the country. I set a live cage-trap for him near my bird feeding station on my property and caught him last night. I haven't moved the cage-trap yet. Around lunch-time today while the racoon was taking a nap in the trap, I noticed there were a few birds ("Tufted Titmouses") hanging around the trap while the racoon was taking a nap. The birds kept walking up to the trap and looking at the racoon and walking-up a little closer and checking him out.

Well, it wasn't long before I figured out what their real motive was for hanging out at the trap. The birds are carefully walking-up to the trap and pulling fur/hairs from the racoon and then flying off. Obviously the birds are using the fur or hair from the racoon for building their nests.

Crazy stuff. I've seen some wild and crazy things happen around my house before but this is a new first - never seen birds pulling fur out of a live racoon before.

.

This post was edited on 4/6 1:43 PM by UpstateGC

 

[apacock]

that is way cool.

 

[CockofEarle]

whew! thought u were gonna say u were @ Gvl zoo watchin' the monkeys*


*

 

[Quisp]

Taking a nap in the trap? That raccoon has chutzpah.

Recently I saw a bee get caught in a spider web, the spider race down to where it was and spin and wrap him up in a matter of seconds. So I know what you mean about act of nature. It's really cool to observe stuff like that.

 

[spinrbait]

at my house on saturday, there were 4 crows on the ground around a rabbit. the rabbit would chase a crow about 5 feet, and the crow would hop away. then the rabbit would chase another. then the crows would hop back closer to the rabbit. they kept doing it a long time, until they all saw me and took off. i'm figuring the rabbit was guarding her young. but it looked like they were playing.

 

[2001]

So here's a couple more:

Saw a mocking bird chasing a hawk. It would dive bomb it and peck the hawk's head; the hawk didn't care. Then the mocking bird landed on the hawk's back, while the hawk was flying, and took a ride! Stayed on the hawk's back for what seemed like 15 seconds.

Another time a hawk was flying around the yard. One mocking bird started screaming at it and mocking birds came from every direction to help it chase the hawk. Seemed like 10-15 showed up. Didn't matter that they were invading another mocking bird's territory, they came to help and meant business. Like before, the hawk didn't care, it eventually moved on.

 

[Freddie.B.Cocky]

Let the racoon go.

 

[importcock]

Well my nature story isn't that good but here goes. Yesterday I was driving back from Georgia where I had been doing some hiking on the A/T. So I'm going down the road and I start hearing some kind of noise under the dash then a little louder noise then the blower motor starts making a lot of noise and it was causing the whole dash to vibrate terribly. I knew something had gotten into the blower motor but I thought something may have broken in there because I had spent a couple of hours the day before driving on some extremely rough forest service roads. Anyway, I stopped at the first place I could and pulled out the glove box and took off the cover for the cabin air filter so I could take a look into the blower. I couldn't see in there so I stuck my hand in there until something touched it. I ended up taking my iphone and setting it to video and stuck it in so I could see what it was. It was a mouse, still alive albeit fairly shaken up from the "tilt-a-whirl" ride he had. I ended up having to buy one of those grabber things to be able to get him out without taking the whole thing apart. When I was trying to grab him I had to use my phone to watch him while I tried to grab him. He started getting too active and I couldn't get him so I turned the fan back on for a few seconds which got him dizzy enough to hold still. I finally got him out and released him alive and maybe a little shaken up. This isn't the first rat I've gotten out of a blower but it is the first one I've ever got out alive.

 

[Bigger_Stronger_Faster]

So what did you do with the racoon?