This weekend, I was in Virginia where it is somewhat warmer than here.  I was
up at dawn and saw a fair amount of wildlife.  On critter, a racoon, was
coming in from his nightly rounds and climbed up a pine tree.  He went to what
I though was "the mother of all squirrel nests" at about 40 ft height.  It was
a nest of sticks and leaves, probably about 3 foot across, perhaps slightly
more.  He went inside the nest for the rest of the day.  

I never knew racoons made (or took over) such nests.  Have any of you observed
racoons in similar nests?  

7 responses total.

Well, the attic in a former house could count as a nest, but it was a rental
and I never went up in there to see what the next looked like.  Raccoons do
seem to like high places, so they myust have had some system before attics
became popular.

A friend of mine woke up one day to find paw prints all over her living room,
which confused her since she didn't have any pets.  Apparently, a raccoon had
made it down through the chimney, walked around her house, and then made it
out somehow maybe even back up through the chimney.

Racoons love to nest in chimneys.  Not many hollow trees here in the city.
Chimneys and storm sewers are ciy's equivalent.

Marc--where in VA were you?? [If you're ever down in southern Va, let me
know--Va isn't too far away from NC--since it borders us and thus, not
too far of a drive from the 'triangle' area!]

I run down to Culpepper/Fairfax a couple of weekends each year.  I'll drop
you a note on the next time - probably in the March-April timeframe.  

Nice area!

Raccoons love to eat Jim's grapes, or at least knock them all down just before
they are ripe. This hear he is fighting back.  Borrowed a live trap and set
it up with bait - organic peanut butter and fermented tofu.  The bait
disappeared, the trap is empty.  He thought it had been sprung until he
noticed mouse turds. The mice go through the cage to get the bait.  But the
raccoons have been leaving the grapes alone - maybe the sight of the cage is
enough to ward them off.  Just in case, Jim also put out a sound generator
that makes a high-pitched whistle that people are advised to stay 25 feet away
from.  The grapes are five feet from the front door so he has the whistle on
a timer to be on only at night, which is when he hears the raccoons tromping
around on the grape trellis.  Yesterday we ate our first almost-ripe grapes
in several years, so something is working right.  

I have a ton of grapes and the racoons dont seem too eager to go into 
the yard since I introduced my dog to the fun game of "chase the big 
ugly night-time squirrels" Of course, I might rather the racoons were 
eating the grapes because the dog kind of likes them and now she has to 
poop a lot. 

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