Looking the problem over!

We have a squirrel feeder on our back deck. It is constructed from a one gallon glass jar on a wooden frame. I noticed that it was always empty in the morning, even if there had been some food left in it at dark. Squirrels are daytime creatures, so I knew it must have been something else cleaning out the feeder. So just before dark, I put some food in the very back of the glass jar as far away from the entrance as possible. Then I set up my game camera and got this set of photographs. As I suspected, raccoons were the culprits. I had recently seen an adult raccoon with two smaller ones, probably this year’s offspring, following along.

Neither arm is quite long enough!

First the adult has a go at the food. However, it cannot quite reach the food in the back of the jar. It tried both “arms”.

Even twisting around won’t help……………. A young raccoon has a try.

The left hand photograph shows that even twisting around will not help.  In the right hand photo, one of the youngsters decides to have a try.

The young raccoon fits right in!

The young raccoon just fits into the jar and finishes off the food. The adult looks on enviously.