We've been feeding birds in Charles County for over 30 years, but never had a
raccoon show up in the day time to feed.

I've heard that day activity in raccoons can be a sign of serious illness.
This raccoon certainly doesn't seem very frightened by my
mad-man-with-the-waving-arms-and-yelling-mouth-and slapping-hands routine.

At first this critter simply gathered leftovers from the ground near the
feeder. But raccoons are canny, and this one is no exception: after feeding for a
while (and returning several times after a "mad-man" episode) the beast
figured out how to climb the pole and render the squirrel guard completely useless
(hope the squirrels weren't up in the trees taking notes!).

I called the MD Natural Resources, and they said that day-active raccoons
were not all that uncommon, and the person gave me the "Nuisance Number."

Do any of you out in ListServe land have experience here? Is this a dangerous
mammal? Should I call the Nuisance Number? To keep the potentially non-bird
string away from the listserve, please email me directly.

Oh, and I've posted a few pictures of the culprit, including one showing the
cleverness of this individual. Pictures are posted at:

http://hometown.aol.com/fburggraf/raccoon.html

Thanks.

Fred Burggraf
Dentsville, MD (Charles Co.)