A fox in our backyard

Going through the fridge last week we found a Tupperware container with the remnants of three-week-old arroz con pollo. There was one piece of chicken left, a drumstick.  It was too old to eat, of course, and we don't put meat in our compost bin. But just tossing it seemed wrong. Repurpose! We got a bright idea: let's put it in front of the trail cam and see who comes to dinner!

We have been moving the trail camera to different locations in the hills here and have not gotten a lot of postable pictures.  We did see a few house cats or feral cats by a creek nearby (perhaps I'll post those later), and a bunch of blurry deer pictures.  We moved the camera into our back yard and put the drumstick a few yards in front of it.   A day later, the morsel was still there in front of the camera, but a couple of days after that it was gone.  We went to get the card out of the camera and 'OH NO' the batteries in the camera had died and there were no photos on the card.

Not completely daunted by this, we looked in the fridge for another item a critter might enjoy, and found a half of a cantaloupe that was never very good anyway and getting kinda old. We put it in front of the camera and 2 days later, voila, several very good pictures of a fox!  And a pair of raccoons, and a young buck.  All came to investigate the melon.

I'm not sure the species of the fox, all foxes look gray in the IR light at night.

Strange though, all they did was nibble on it.  It's still there.  Maybe we will get more pictures yet. Or maybe, like us, they didn't think the melon was very tasty.

Raccoon on the Deck

The other night, just after we fell asleep, we thought we heard some noises in the house.  I tried to ignore them at first, but I finally really sat up and listened.  Yep, there was a strange noise, but I couldn't tell where it was coming from.  We were both awake by now and  looked out the window. There was the source.  A raccoon was on the deck railing, eating birdseed out of the feeder stationed there!

I went and grabbed my camera and tried to take a couple of photos through the window.  Most of these did not come out because the flash reflected off the glass.  I was going to open the sliding glass door to try to take a better picture, but he shimmied down the railing to the deck and came right up to the door to face me down. I was sure that  if I opened it he would come right inside.

After I took another couple of photos he turned and ran down the stairs and out of sight. Then we realized one cat, Paloosh, was still outside and we were worried he might run into the raccoon. I opened the door, called his name and in a few seconds he came racing up the stairs and into our bedroom. We're pretty sure he must have passed the Masked Bandit on his way up but luckily there was no fight.

The photos posted are the only decent ones I got.  They are rather amusing.

Raccoons: Access Denied

Last month we wrote a post (Masked bandit comes for dinner) about a raccoon coming into our house through the cat door and raiding the cat's food dishes.  We caught him on our motion sensor camera.   Brian suggested we buy an electronic cat door to prevent the raccoons from entering.  We did, and it seems to be working.

This new cat door has a sensor that detects magnets, and it comes with 2 magnets to put on your cats' collars.  As the cat approaches the door, the sensor detects the magnet on the cat's collar and unlatches the door so the cat can enter.  If the sensor does not detect a magnet, the door stays latched shut.

We were not sure it would work when we bought it.  First, our large cat, Paloosh, had never worn a collar and we wondered if he would object to wearing one.  This turned out to be a non-problem.  We bought a cat collar, put it on him, and he pretty much ignored it was there.  Second, the whole thing sounded a bit 'hocus-pocus' or 'smoke and mirrors', but it is now installed and it does work.

Ninja, with magnet and blue bell on her collar

It did take some adjustment for the cats.  Ninja had the most trouble at first.  She would hear the door latch click as she approached and this would startle her, she would pause, and then the door would re-latch.   She would poke at it with her paw to no avail.  We forced open the latch and unplugged the battery for a few days until she was confident to go right through it.  When we re-installed the battery she went through it with no problem.

The door does have some side benefits as well.  We realize that it will keep out the neighborhood cats, as long as their owners do not have magnets on their collars.  And it keeps the wind out, the old cat door was commonly blown open by the wind, letting cold air into the house.  This one stays shut and that should help our heating bills.

Now the questions is, how long will it be before the raccoons acquire a magnet and learn how to unlatch this new cat door?

Masked bandit comes for dinner

In order to test our new game camera, (see http://backyardcritterwatch.blogspot.com/2011/01/game-camera.html) we aimed it at the cat door from our deck, hoping to get pictures of our cats coming and going from our house.  We put it on a plant shelf and left it there for the night.  The next morning we grabbed the camera, and were we in for a surprise!

Most of the pictures showed just the cat door, with no cats coming or going.  A few showed Ninja and Paloosh--the felines--either entering or leaving the house, or hanging around at the cat door, but one series of three pictures clearly shows a RACCOON, approaching the cat door until his nose is just about touching it!  

Did he go inside?  We think 'yes'.  For the past month or two, it seemed like the cats were eating more than usual.  Some mornings their food bowls were completely empty and we wondered how they could eat that much food in one night. Putting two and two together, we believe that this raccoon has been coming into our house while we sleep, raiding the cat dishes in the kitchen and exiting before being caught!

We have now ordered an electronic cat door, one that stays locked until it senses a magnet on a cat's collar.  http://www.petdoors.com/cat-mate-electronic-cat-flaps.html  (Thanks to Brian for the idea)  When we get it and install it we will let you know if it works.