Thanksgiving Raccoon

It's Throwback Thursday, and this was the 1st Eastern Raccoon picture I managed to get. If memory serves, I was walking along a trail at Washington Valley Park on Thanksgiving Day in 2015 when I saw a raccoon on the trail ahead of me. I fumbled to get my point-and-click camera out (it took better pictures than my smartphone) but the raccoon scampered off the trail. I eventually managed to find it and get a slightly obstructed picture.

Although I've occasionally gotten pictures of raccoons deep in the woods (once at Duke Farms and once at Sourland Mountain Preserve), I've generally seen them closer to civilization; they didn't get the nickname of "trash pandas" by accident. This particular raccoon was a bit of a tweener; it was seen in the woods, though there were some homes in the area too. I wouldn't be surprised if this raccoon was supplementing its forest foraging with a few visits to the houses in the area.

There are 3 species of raccoon, with our Common Raccoon being (surprise!) the most common, at least in North America. There is also a Pygmy Raccoon that looks like a smaller version of our raccoon that lives on a Mexican island and a Crab-eating Raccoon [1] that lives in Central and South America.

AFAIK our raccoons are all Eastern Raccoons, a subspecies that's on the small side but is fairly widespread.

November 26, 2015 at Washington Valley Park
Photo 5455687, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

[1] Despite only one species having "crab-eating" in their name, I'm confident that all 3 species would be happy to eat a crab.


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