I think I embarrassed Rollo!

Well here he is.....Rollo the puppy dog! LOL! His left ear is the healed one, and the right has the new hematoma. There is no doubt I will always know him when I see him out in the wild!

He wasn't thrilled about me laughing out loud at him! He showed me what he thought about that and refused to come out and say Hi!


That's Mohican peeking around the corner. As usual, he wasn't about to leave the cozy warmth of the den box, even to say Hi to mom!

Over in the other den box Tosser and Stinky were the only one's willing to come out and say Hi. Quinny and Nosey stayed tucked away inside.

My boy Tosser! What a sweetheart.....he loves saying Hi to mom and getting a good chin scratching.

And Stinky was right behind him....lovin' those chin scratches!!

Then a big yawn and back to bed for them all....

Up in the main pen the youngsters are out and about as usual when there's food involved! Charger enjoys his dinner......

You call this food??? They were more interested in playing with the corn than eating it.

Look ma! Magic! You can see through my hand!

Outlaw waves what appears to be a transparent paw!

Video at the coon den.

OK! Finally got some video to work here. Sorry but it's just some short 5 second clips. I haven't figured out how to stream it into one long video.

We have at least 4....but I think even more...using the den. Based on last night video, I know we have Daisy, and what I think is a mom and her 2 kits from this past spring.

Here's momma saying Hi to everyone in video land! Smile for the camera!

Here we have the 2 kits I believe, wrestling with each other having some fun!

And here we have Daisy in the front, and momma walking over to her kits. See the way they act with her....she's definitely the boss, and they are happy to see her, not afraid.

Daisy and Momma get along well. Daisy on the left....I can tell her by the skin tags she had on the left side of her face. You can't see them here, but the clip just prior to this with these two, she was turned the other way and I could see them. I can see them in the video above also with all 4 of them.

Everyone that came and went in and out of that den appeared fine. Whoever was injured....if it was one of them, is none the worse for wear, and other than the minor trail I saw this morning, no new blood to report thank god!

Rollo's ears & the blood trail.

Well Rollo has another hematoma....in his other ear now! He's looking more and more like a puppy dog every day with his floppy ears! At least we'll be able to identify him easily after his release. Very odd. Never had a coonie get one before and now I've got one that got 2 of them! I'll get him out when the weather gets better and check his ears again, but there was nothing inside causing a problem last time so I don't expect one this time.

I went out at 5:30 this morning before work to collect the coon cam. Whoever was hurt doesn't seem to be all that bothered by it. There was a VERY slight trail of blood.....(a tiny drop here and there that would never even be noticed if it wasn't on the bright white snow).....on the well traveled path across the pond right to one of the feeders. I can't wait to get out of work and check out the video......

Trouble at the den.

After finding a lot of coonie tracks in the snow I decided to take a walk over to the den and check it out. The smart ones are using my well worn path as their super highway across the pond. Lots of prints in both directions. I found a newly dug out den just on the opposite side prior to the big one I found by following some dirty coonie prints.

When I got to the first den site it was not what I wanted to see! Lots of blood! First the big area on the ground before the big hole...right under where I hang the camera.

Then more directly by the entrance....

I'm not terribly worried about it. Screech bled much worse the time he returned injured and he did fine holed up in the pen until he healed and went on his way again. Also, these pics are the bulk of the bloody spots. Nothing leading away and very little spread around the area, and not a lot directly inside the hole.

Lots of activity to and from the hole...but the blood never trailed further than the immediate den site area....the trail leading away to the right was clean....well as far as blood goes at least! Lots of dirt trailed around though. There were a couple small drops near the smaller back entrance also, but very small.

This was the newly dug den I encountered before getting to the main den. Looks like someone quickly dug one out under an old fallen tree.

This being breeding season and all, I wouldn't be surprised if some male was feeling his oats and caused a commotion! Then someone decided to move into a different room down the hall so to speak to avoid it all maybe! Or maybe the coyotes decided they wanted to move back in! Who knows! But I did set up the camera at the den again in the hopes of scoping it out. Now that the weekend is over there will be less people in the woods to come across it.

Lots of activity at the den!

Last night was a busy night for this gang! I could tell before I even checked the camera....Instead of one set of tracks, there were tracks everywhere and lots of dirt around the entrance. These are some still shots from the video I got at our newly discovered den site. If I am ever able to figure out how to get the video on here, I'll post it.

Suffice it to say they started early...about 6:30pm and were coming and going until about 5am! There are at least 4 of them....that's the most I saw all at once on the video, and one of them is Laurie's girl Daisy. She's done a great job making friends with my gang!

By this point someone had decided to climb near the camera...probably to check it out! The camera shook a little and was moved, but luckily not too much...the den entrance was still visible.

I would love to know how many are really holed up in there...it's a huge den!

And the occupant of the den is...........

One very lucky raccoon!

Ventured out around 8:30......

...and back an hour later.....

Squeezing ass first into the den!! LOL!

Seems like one of the smaller females....but obviously can't be sure. But I'll tell ya...whoever it is struck gold....it's the Hilton of the woods!!

Silly raccoons!

The little kids are in their usual "totem pole" position waiting for me to bring them dinner. Whenever I look out the window from the house the 3 of them are always like this....just like a totem pole.

The chow line!

What a handsome boy!

Not to mention a big goof!!! You think he likes his belly rubs??

Our little brushkin, Button.

You might think he's watching a scary movie....but he's not.

If your used to working with coons, you know how they always get that clump of food stuck to the roof of their mouth. Then they go nuts and claw at their face because they can't get it out. Then I usually end up sticking my finger in there and scraping it off.

Well not this guy! He sticks his hands right in there and gets it out!

Ahhhhhhhhhhh.....yup, there it is.......

......ok, just about....ahhhhhhhh, got it!

That's much better now!

Button has raspberries for the camera today..

Nothing beats a good chin scratching! (Except a good belly rub maybe!)

Charger enjoys his treat.

I don't know what got into the older boys out back, but they were full of fun and games! All 6 of them came out...all the way out! I was shocked. The twins were especially rambunctious. They wrestled like maniacs with each other, and with me, and with each other again. I was down there for about an hour hanging out and watching them, and they were still going at it when I left! Quinny and Tosser were also a little frisky and playful, but not as crazy as the twins. Rollo and Mohican came out but were not all that playful. Just had a bite to eat and watched the rest of them acting like maniacs!

Here they come......

Nosey and Tosser.

Nosey ventures over first.

Then Quinny starts out.

Stinky is right behind.

From her on Nosey and Stinky were wrestle maniacs! Bounding around in the foot of new snow, sniffing, digging, wrestling each other and just plain old enjoying themselves and the snow.

Quinny and Tosser did most of their playing up high on the shelves and branches, preferring to avoid the deep snow.

By the time I got these pics it was getting dusky out. I wish I could have gotten more of their silly antics because it was so fun to see, but unfortunately the fading light made it impossible to get any good photos...it was just too dark by then. I'm lucky these even came out.

Following the coons.

So I'm checking some of the feeders near the edge of the pond. There are always lots of tracks around them, but I come upon a set of coonie tracks that were just too perfect, leading across to the other side of the pond, not to follow.......so I follow them!

So across the pond I head, parallel to the coonies path......

(the tracks perpendicular to mine and the coonies are coyote)

It wasn't far....this is looking back from whence I came! Right from that scrub on the far right of the pic that is in shade.......

And not 2 minutes into my trek among the brush on the other side I come upon this! The tracks lead me right to a den dug into a small hill.

No small den either. Not big enough for a person to squeeze in, but definitely big enough for a coyote. This was the main hole and it is obviously still used. There was so much traffic in paw prints around I couldn't make out heads or tails of who is actually using the thing. Coyote and coon prints everywhere, and it's definitely big enough to be a coyote den! Even if it is being used by the coonies now, it probably started out as a coyote den.

About 6ft further up the slope from the main hole, another entrance...probably the back door!

....also well used and also lots of tracks around it.

Both holes are deep and lead into a dark, open, tunnel that I was not about to stick my head into!! I noticed one other possible hole in the area as well...who knows how extensive a den is under there.

Looking from the back entrance down to the main one you can see prints and trails leading in all directions, 2 of them more used as you can tell by the dirt trail.

The tracks at 12 oclock in the above picture lead through the brush and out onto the pond that is well traveled by them all!

I'm thinking I may take the cooncam and set it up by the den on my days off and see what I get. My only concern would be someone seeing it while walking on the path in the area and taking it or noticing the den and interfering. I'll scope it out Monday and decide then.

The rest of the gang is great. Frigid temps around here are keeping them all in their den boxes! Jingles the bat is sleeping away as usual also, so nothing new or exciting to report other than my discovery!