As usual, a picture from this past week inspires my Driftless Thursday post:

Raccoons are of course common in Wisconsin, especially in the woods. Most people consider them a nuisance, as they’ll scavenge in garbage cans and occasionally try to nest in your attic or chimney if they find a way in. So far, we haven’t had any issues beyond them showing up to eat any seeds left from the bird feeders. (We take our bird feeders in each night due to bears, but the raccoons would provide a good secondary reason.)

I’ve only got only other raccoon shot, from 2022, and it’s in the same spot:

Raccoons mostly scavenge at night so the lack of many pix isn’t surprising. I do have a nighttime raccoon story though. My husband and I woke up after midnight to the sound of “gremlins” having an animated conversation in our backyard. It was one of the strangest sounds I’ve ever heard out here in the country. We had no idea what was happening outside. When we flicked the outside spotlights on, there were three juvenile raccoons scampering around and bickering. I couldn’t tell if they were just talking while scavenging or also playing at the same time but it was a lot of fun to watch once we understood aliens weren’t invading.

I did find a youtube video with various raccoon sounds explained, in case you are interested. The sounds at the start seems pretty close to my memory. I also learned from this video that raccoons can purr like cats, not that I’m going to go pet one!