Views From Medicine Spirit Ranch

As the days of Covid-19 linger on and my boredom mounts, I find myself focusing energy on unusual topics. Such has been a recent instance of identifying nocturnal intruders who persist in knocking down and destroying our bird feeders. Now my lovely wife, Trudy, holds that my attention to these matters borders on out of control obsessive/compulsive behavior, bordering on maniacal. I simply maintain that I am curious and have strict attention to detail.

In any event, our half dozen or so bird feeders have been repeatedly attacked. I found one or two of them dislodged from their attachments to the tree almost every day, and on occasion destroyed completely. Needless to say, my feathered friends needed me to act. Answers were required.

I began my quixotic enterprise by fastening two borrowed game cameras onto nearby trees and setting out a small live animal trap. Given previous experience with raided bird feeders, I suspected devilishly adept squirrels or raccoons. But keeping my differential diagnosis wide, as we physicians like to do at the outset of a case, I also threw in for good measure, the possibility of Big Foot.

I recognize those who are reading this blog piece immediately discount the possibility of Big Foot. Oh yea of little faith. In addition to Trudy I presented this intriguing possibility of Bigfoot to my good neighbors, Colonel and Mrs. Tom Norris. They too like Trudy had stricken looks on their faces, as if I might just have gone around the bend. Nevertheless, I remained undaunted and full of unrequited purpose.

Evidence of Bigfoot, ostensibly in our front yard

To enhance my case, I began sending pictures to Tom and Linda Norris of suggestive evidence of Big Foot. Who knows but Big Foot could be alive and well in Live Oak Valley, I said. Besides these bird feeders are hung as much as six feet above the ground making them too high for a deer to dislodge and surely too difficult to remove from its metal hanger by even the craftiest squirrel or raccoon. But not too high for Bigfoot to reach, I wager.

A hairy Bigfoot

Besides creating a myth that Big Foot is alive and well in Live Oak Valley wouldn’t do our tourist business any harm in our tourist driven city of Fredericksburg. Needless to say, Trudy and the Norrises remained skeptical despite clear cut pictorial evidence (amazing what you can find online) to support my thesis.

After setting the cameras and baiting the trap with marshmallows, I slept fitfully, not too patiently waiting for the sun to rise. Peering through our kitchen window the next morning at dawn at the live trap within the shadows not more than fifteen feet away, I found the trap had been cleaned out of marshmallows and had caught absolutely NOTHING. Repeatedly, I baited the trap only to find each morning that somehow the trap had been cleaned out of bait but had failed to capture the nocturnal intruder. Surely I thought this was evidence of a sentient creature such as Big Foot.

One of the cameras indeed caught a glimpse of a hairy creature that was mostly outside the frame. Ah ha, surely such a hairy beast must be the skulking Big Foot of Live Oak Valley! Admittedly, it also may have been a raccoon that climbed immediately in front of the camera’s lens.

Realizing that the live trap was rather small, I also wondered if somehow an animal had been able to crawl into the trap, travel to the end where the spring plate was located, eat the marshmallows, and manage somehow to prevent the trap door from falling behind it. To investigate this possibility, I borrowed a larger live trap from my neighbor, Jake Davies.

I again baited the larger trap, set the cameras and waited for my stealthy plan to unfold. Sure enough the next morning I found a rather angry raccoon within the trap, one also in a nearby tree, and the east side of a large raccoon heading rapidly west! Well, two down out of three is not too bad.

One Mad Raccoon. Not my raccoon but representative from the internet

Now I was confident that I could rid my proud dominion of intruding and raiding raccoons. All I needed was a fresh and goodly supply of marshmallows and some patience. To my surprise, days went by without capturing the raccoon. Each day I would steal out of bed early to check the large trap and find that the marshmallows had disappeared. Each evening I would place still more marshmallows at the end of the trap just behind the spring plate that when stepped upon would drop the gate and trap the raccoon.

To my amazement I continued not to capture the raccoon but continued to lose the bait. Finally I determined to make a closer inspection of the trap to determine why it was not functioning correctly. To my surprise, I found wedged under the foot plate, not one, not two, but three limestone rocks. Something or someone had placed these stones strategically such that it was impossible for the foot plate to be depressed and close the trap door. Meanwhile I thought one fat raccoon was wandering about my property with a big sticky marshmallow grin on its face.

Now I ask, has anyone ever seen a crafty raccoon clever enough to disable a live trap? I know they are smart but really… To make matters worse, following removal of the stones and re-baiting of the trap, never again has the trap or the bird feeders been hit.

I believe the raccoon and I have established a truce of sorts at this juncture. The raccoon seems to have given up on the bird feeders and I am about to return the large live trap. Now perhaps I can focus on other somewhat more productive pursuits. Besides, maybe Big Foot still lurks out there somewhere in Live Oak Valley.