Your Wild Life Photos

[Shinpachi]

Not breaking the shell

 

[Old Wizard]

Because the Magpies are so aggressive, the Blue Jay flies off somewhere secluded to open up his treat.
Smart!

 

[Gnomey]

Good shot!

 

[Torch]

We had Mountain Blue Jays when I lived up at 7400 ft, always wondered how the first blue decided a peanut was good to them.

 

[Shinpachi]

My wild life on the table.
I really appreciate people who found a peanut to eat anyway.

 

[GrauGeist]

The other morning, I noticed what looked to be a rather fat cat in the creek, fooling around.

Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was a Raccoon digging for (and finding) Crawdads. I was able to get my camera and catch it in action, but two things prevented a higher quality shot: the chain link fence and the fact that I had forgot to switch on the Image Stabilization feature in my haste.

What was really unusual about this, is that Raccoons are mostly nocturnal creatures (hence my original thought that it was a cat), but it was fun to see it digging, finding and then washing the Crawdads before it ate them. The noise made by the camera alerted it that there was an audience and it scampered off down the creek.

 

[Shinpachi]

Cute, Dave

 

[fubar57]

Despite the issues, still an interesting shot.

 

[michaelmaltby]

water bear, in German ....

 

[GrauGeist]

Wash Bear in Bulgarian, too (Миещата мечка)

 

[mikewint]

Very Nice Dave. Unusual to find one in the daylight. Crawdads are one of their staple foods along with other invertebrates and plants. Every common name for them incorporates their characteristic dousing behavior plus BEAR or in some languages RAT.
From Captain John Smith's list of Powhatan words AROUGHCUN "one who rubs, scrubs and scratches with its hands".
Even its scientific name PROCYON LOTOR translates as "before-the-dog-washer". Procycon is the brightest star in the constellation Canis minor as Sirius, the dog star, is the brightest star in Canis Major.
Raccoons are not in the bear family URSIDAE they are in the PROCYONIDAE family. Giant Pandas once thought to be in the raccoon family are now, through DNA testing, bears while the lesser or red pandas are raccoons

 

[Old Wizard]

And now we know.

 

[mikewint]

Two years ago I had one big old raccoon that used to come up on the deck at night, climb the railing, reach up to the humming bird feeder, tip it and drink the nectar.
Thought I'd outfox him so I hung the feeder over the deck on a chain. The SOB grabbed the chain, pulled the feeder up hand over hand and got the nectar.

 

[michaelmaltby]

I seen the same tactic to gain suet ..... they're smart and patient

 

[Gnomey]

Nice shots guys!

 

[mikewint]

Me too, he's in raccoon heaven now and I have a hole in my window screen

 

[Wayne Little]

 

[fubar57]

Was a blast guard on Sunday and this fellow showed up and sat on a lift cylinder for about 10 minutes.

 

[GrauGeist]

Nice catch, Geo!

I was out freezing my arse off Monday morning, shooting a sunrise, and got photobombed by a flight of Canadian Geese.

 

[Wurger]