Masked bandit in the wild...

I’ve gotten so used to seeing our piggy little raccoons lazily devouring our bird seed in our backyard at night, that when I saw this guy carefully climb out of a hole in a tree, blink a few times in the sun, climb over to a smaller branch, and then lumber back into the same hole, it came as a surprise. A raccoon in the wild! I hung around for a while and watched him reappear and disappear a few more times. It was perfect viewing. I'm sure you can already guess that as I watched this sleepy little fellow I was standing on the Little Miami Bike Trail (where I really should just pitch a tent and be done with it!). I was standing in the area where the Indigo Buntings and Scarlet Tanagers hang out, about 40 or 50 feet past the Red-tailed Hawk's nest. In this spot, the land drops off considerably on the river side of the path, and the river departs from the trail, leaving a sizeable area of swampy lowland filled with large Sycamore trees and other smaller trees that you can look into the canopy of. This fellow was eye level with me on the trail, but 40 or 50 feet from the ground in a huge old Sycamore. He didn't stay awake too long. Deciding it was too much effort to climb down the tree, he slowly made his way back into his house, and I assume fell asleep until a more reasonable hour when the moon would wash the leaves with a soft glow and the fireflies and bats would keep him company.