I had the feeling that, if I had opened the door, we might have had a raccoon family charged with home invasion. Our woods attract bigger animals, but every yard is the home of countless insects, both winged and wigglers, creepers and climbers, burrowers and bugaboos. So many ideas, so much that can be done with just a willingness to learn about the needs of the occupants of your outdoor areas. The Life Cycle of a Raccoon , and The Raccoon . I knew I would learn more about my inquisitive friends if I looked in The Grolier Illustrated Encyclopedia of Animals and here I found that there are seven species of raccoons and they belong to the same family as the panda.
Raccoons are about the size of a cat.
The Animals of the Temperate Forests had both a picture and a page of information on my nocturnal visitors, showing that raccoons live in every state in the United States except Alaska and Hawaii. This is called disruptive coloration. Sterling and Rascal spent a full year together, much of it in the woods, fishing and camping out, all preparing Rascal for the spring day when he had to be returned to a life in the wild.