This is going to be fun! I love my new toy!
For reference, the flat roof here is the one over my computer room / office. My desk is right about directly under where the camera is. The hidey hole where the raccoons often live is where that little gap is at the left edge of where the flat roof and the garage roof intersect. Just beyond the garage, to the left, is that honkin’ big date palm that you see in about 99% of the pictures taken from the front yard.
Coming back here after wherever they spent the night before. Less than an hour after sunset and you can see that the twilight sky is still much lighter than it is in later pictures.
It’s been obvious for a while that the hidey hole under the eaves of our garage is not their only “nest.” It obviously is their daytime home quite often – you can hear them moving around off and on all day long.
Mom sees the camera, attached to the ladder at the edge of the roof. “W! T! F!”
It’s still there. Let’s see if it will attack.
Now it’s clear that the family is indeed a female with three smaller kits.
I did wonder what they kept doing with this pipe. From inside, I can often hear them banging it, moving it, sliding it around a bit. It’s not fastened down, I just figured they were tripping over it or just stepping on it.
Wrong!
The pipe is a drain for the condensation coming from the heat pump just out of sight on the right. This little guy’s holding on to it and they’re quite often seen over there by the end.
Which all of a sudden makes perfect sense. Yet another reason they think we’re the Raccoon Ritz. The pipe gives them a safe and convenient source of drinking water!
This picture also explained something. At times we just get a tremendous ruckus coming from up there, clearly heard from several rooms away. It sounds like a burglar is breaking in. I’ve thought it might be a half dozen or more adults fighting, having an orgy, or both.
Nope, it’s the kits wrestling around and playing, like immature mammals around the planet have been doing for the past several hundred thousand years. When they hit the two skylights (just out of sight in the far right corner) and scamper back and forth across them, it’s like them frolicking on a drum.
They seem to come and go, back about every two hours or so. Feeding I presume, looking for someone with an open trash can or a fruit tree that makes easy pickings.
Sunrise was at 05:50 – this was the last time I saw them as they headed into the hidey hole for the day.
I find it interesting that they come out less than an hour after sunset but go to ground for the day almost two hours before sunrise. My guess is that it’s easy to know when the sun has gone down and it’s dark enough for them to feel comfortable, while their sense of when sunrise is coming might not be as accurate.
But I could be completely full of it. (Full disclosure – the odds are excellent that I am.)
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 