Wild kingdom

I was sitting at my desk yesterday morning enjoying the early summer peace and quiet, when a flock of noisy crows descended on the big tree across the street. It was the most gosh-awful racket you could imagine. Crows are smart and don't do anything without a reason, so my first thought was "eagle." Crows despise eagles, but surely a raptor wouldn't be dumb enough to sit in a tree and be heckled by crows?

I watched from the porch for a while, and there it was! The tail of a young raccoon high in the branches. By using zoom and then cropping the image I got a pretty good picture of his hind end with my little camera.
In fact, I've seen several teenage coons lately, wandering around in broad daylight. I think their Mams have just cut them loose, and they're out in the neighborhood learning life's lessons the hard way. This one was sure getting lots of unwelcome attention...

He tried to tough it out, but an hour later the crows were still having a fit. They eventually badgered him down, because he ran for cover across our overgrown front yard. I got another quick picture before he gave me a dirty look and ducked into the hedge.

And he still wasn't off the hook-- one of the crows stood guard and squawked at him for another hour, just for good measure.