Is it a bird, a plane?....

Today I heard the birds chirping in my chimney. So I thought to myself that I wanted to get a picture of the baby birds before they flew away. So I got my camera and knelt down and opened the damper or flue. I saw some fur. I thought that is not fur it must be feathers so I opened it again to my suprise I saw a raccoons beady, black eyes staring down at me. I sure was surprised. Those birds are not birds at all they are raccoons. I slammed the damper closed and screamed and giggled and ran around the house like I saw a mouse under my feet. Oh how I wish it were just a mouse. This sure explains my post last week about the birds not sounding like birds. So I called an exterminator and this is the picture he took looking down my chimney at the raccoon.

He is investigating how many raccoons are in there. He came to the conclusion about 3-4 babies and the momma.

To get the momma raccoon out he soaked sponges with ammonia and put them in the chimney. It usually takes a few hours for the mom to abandon her babies and get out of the gas chamber.

But to his surprise the momma came right out.

And she ran down our second chimney. So now she is in the downstairs chimney and the babies are in the upstairs chimney.

So we must wait for the momma to come out and he can catch her. Then he will get the babies. He can't risk getting the babies out now in fear that they will cry and the momma will come and attack him. So this story is to be continued....