Nocky's Journal

Ever since the mouse was relocated, there's been nothing new. I will leave the trap out tonight and if nothing gives, the mouse problem is over!

But I have a new problem occurring in the middle of the night. Tuesday, I made a fresh batch of hummingbird nectar and hung it up. Wednesday morning, it was bone dry. No one knows why. There's at least ten honeybees on the hummingbird feeder now but there's no way they could've drained it. I made a new batch of nectar and hung that up.

This morning, the feeder is bonedry again. I just made a fresh batch, shrieked my way through the honeybee swarm to change feeders, and then sat back to try to figure it out.

The woodpecker has never drained the feeder (haven't seen it recently either). It's not heavy enough to make it empty out. The culprit is obviously attacking the feeder in the middle of the night. I looked up bats and found out that there's a big issue of bats in Arizona that drain feeders overnight.

Tonight, I plan to check every hour or so and see if I can catch the culprit - or at least figure out when the feeder is being emptied.

Hummingbird feeder is on the ground. I went to check to see if I could catch the culprit - or to see how emptied it was - but the hummingbird feeder was gone! I walked out and found it on the ground.

I'm nixing bats and adding something furrier... I've never seen a squirrel come up. Opossum? I've seen one or two of those over the years.

EDIT: *research* - Ah-hah... It has to be a darn raccoon.

Creature spotted! I was worried the light would scare him so I tried to do it through the glass sliding door.



Satisfied that I had some sort of tangible evidence, I turned the back porch light on and walked out.

( WHO BE YOU? WHY BE YOU DRINKIN MAH SUGAH WATER?? )

The *most* awesome thing was that I was able to walk up to the railing and stick my camera into the bush for some up-close shots. It didn't hiss or give any indication it was scared. I think it was because he/she was full and happy at the moment.

Now I just can't figure out how to discourage this little fella from making his nightly visits!