So much for another urban raccoon myth
The wily varmints sleep the winter away, eh? Not when there’s fresh turkey to be had
Acouple of days before Christmas, I arose in the morning and made my way to our kitchen to get my much-needed loading dose of java. My sister Carol, visiting us for the holidays with her husband, William, was standing by our back door, looking out the window. She was visibly amused.
Before I could make my way to the coffee pot, she beckoned me to the door.
“Margaret, Margaret!” she exclaimed. “You’ve gotta come over here and see this!”
I approached the window and took a somewhat bleary-eyed gander out at our back deck. It registered on me that our cardinal-red L. L. Bean freezer bag was more or less where I had left it on our deck the night before. But there was another shape a couple of metres away. Something in the vague shape of a large turkey. A fresh, uncooked turkey.
I readjusted my glasses. A closer look revealed the shape of the mystery item to be more of — um — a turkey carcass. The remnants of the 17-pound bird that had formerly been in the L. L. Bean bag, along with a gigantic bag of ice and a variety of other comestibles Carol had prepared for us in her home in Gatineau, Que., to contribute to our holiday dinners.
Another glance at the red bag. It was completely intact. There was not a rip or a tear in its pliable plastic material.
“It’s the raccoons,” Carol said, helping me make sense of the scene in front of me. “They used their little hands to undo the zipper. They took what the wanted out of the bag and left the rest.” She was laughing as she said this. Seems the raccoons enjoyed the raw turkey for their festive dinner, then followed it up with Carol’s homemade banana bread for dessert. Apparently they were not into vegetables — they left a huge tray of mashed squash completely untouched.
“At first I was angry at myself. I should’ve realized the coons could get into that damn bag,” Carol said.
Faced with the same problem a year earlier, a fresh turkey too big to comfortably fit into our packed refrigerator, my sister and I had been considerably smarter. With the temperatures outside below zero, we put the big bird into a large plastic storage tub with a tight, snap-on lid. Then we stacked about 40 pounds of bricks on the lid and left it outside our back door. Safe as Fort Knox.
This year, however, I was feeling rushed and impatient and the freezer bag — unlike the plastic tub — was handy. Easy peasy. What could I have been thinking? The truth is, I hadn’t been overly concerned about the local raccoons. I honestly thought they were having a long winter’s nap. A well-deserved hibernation, you might say, after their busy spring, summer and fall marauding through our neighbourhood, causing mayhem with everyone’s green bins.
I quickly learned, though, that raccoons don’t really hibernate in the same deadto-the-world way we picture some animals doing. With the approach of cold winter weather, raccoons retreat to their dens for periods of time for what is called a “winter rest,” or torpor. But this period of relative inactivity may be interrupted periodically when the temperature rises or weather improves. Then they rouse themselves to go in search of food — or, if it’s late January or February, a mate.
This turned out to be the year we had occasion to see the raccoons going about their winter depradations for ourselves. As the clock ticked down to Christmas, everyone in our family was running just to stay in place, too busy with work, school, family and social commitments to clean up the turkey mess on our deck. During the 24-hours we couldn’t get to that particular task, a host of creatures came by to check it out.
Once night fell, the raccoon family dropped by for Festivus, the reprise edition.
After the fresh uncooked turkey and the banana bread — the squash apparently didn’t pass muster — the only wonder is the raccoons didn’t ask for a fingerbowl with a slice of lemon to wash up in
When I looked out the window at midnight, there were two small, youngish animals deboning the sorry bird. They were making themselves quite at home, too. I’m surprised they didn’t ask for a fingerbowl with a slice of lemon to wash up in.
I ran to get my camera, to catch them in the act. But it was far too dark to shoot them without flash; with flash, the bright light just exploded off the window glass. I tried opening the back door a crack, to get my camera outside. But with the tiniest noise, the coons were off, melting into the underbrush of our yard.
Less than an hour later they returned, and once again I tried to get a picture. No dice. For this particular photo op, the final score was going to be raccoons 1, humans 0 — not an uncommon reckoning when going head to head with Procyon lotor.
Carol, bless her, had already replaced our bird, and 24 hours before Christmas, turkey number 2 was resting comfortably in the safest place possible, our fridge, after a massive rearranging of its contents.
We were out the cost of turkey number1, but we consoled ourselves with the knowledge that the incident would become part of family lore.
“Remember Christmas 2014,” we would say in years to come. “The year the coons got our bird?”
The night after Christmas, I was driving home from work very late. Our street was ablaze with seasonal decorations — electrified reindeer, Santas — even an illuminated Charlie Brown and Snoopy. In the brighter than usual night, I was able to see the rounded, hunched-over shapes of two smallish coons crossing the road ahead of my car.
Raccoons hibernating? I’ll never believe that old urban myth again. mbream@thestar.ca