Debora Dale Alt logo
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE
where fear and passion collide
Debora Dale Alt logo
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE
where fear and passion collide

Baby raccoons!

Just the other day, I told y’all about the raccoons in my neighbor’s attic crawl space. Well, we’ve been dealing with raccoons in our attics for a few years now. In late winter/early spring, female raccoons look for a safe place to den. “Safe”, meaning away from male raccoons who resent the babies because while mama nurses them, she won’t mate. So… quite simply, baby raccoons are not safe around a horny male and mama has to hide them.

That’s another reason I don’t like the idea of calling in animal control. The mom works so hard to keep her babies safe. That’s nature at it’s most basic and beautiful.

But, these raccoons are rather fertile and while I saw two adolescent raccoons last week, I have now seen Mom and three toddlers who are still so small, they’re unable to navigate their way home.

This morning, at 6, which is late for them to go home, I heard all this chattering from outside. What did I see? Mama raccoon on the roof across the alley, coaxing her little cubs up the drainpipe where they would then tightrope along the roof’s edge for a couple of yards, then wiggle down to the awning and into their dark and cozy den – which happens to be my neighbor’s attic crawl space.

The chattering was the mom telling them to hurry, I’m sure. It was also the babies grunts and whines as they tried and tried to do as mom said, only to fail and have her lead them down instead. Where they wound up is anyone’s guess. The babies are at that awkward stage – too big for her to carry home and too small to get home on their own.

I don’t want them in anyone’s attic and I’d rather they live away from our neighborhood but… I find myself now concerned about their safety and hoping they’ll soon get that upper body strength necessary to find their way back “home”.

For your viewing pleasure… this is what I watched from my window this morning: