Piccolo Bandito

The raccoon cub that got left behind

You may have read the post I shared last Sunday, about our adventures with a raccoon mother and baby kits. That post, as it happens, posted on Fathers Day, the day Beau came to the gradual realization that his celebrations would include taking on parental responsibility for the raccoon cub that got left behind by its mother. Perhaps some cosmic empty-nest karma was Beau’s Father’s Day gift!

Clueless humans that we are, as of my last post, we had hoped rather than becoming prey to an owl, that by bringing this abandoned raccoon cub closer to the barn (where we had encountered the creatures we assumed were his mother and sibling), the abandoned raccoon kit would be safely reunited with its family, and all would be well. But that night, we saw the mother raccoon on our barn cam, out with only one of her cubs. Beau and I were concerned. Why only one? Was that kit part of a different litter? Did we compound its troubles by “saving” it? Did our handling of him alienate him from the pack? Was he the runt? Ah, nature…

In tandem, our Father’s Day entertainment was our ongoing barn tidy up, when it became increasingly apparent that this baby raccoon was now on its own. We heard it mewing under the floorboards all day long as I busied myself hooking up the stereo system (that we also found abandoned in the house), hoisting the speakers up high in the rafters. The sound was filling the air, a satisfying crackle of dusty vinyl, but between side A and side B, we could hear the little one, underfeet, mewing below the barn.

Beau was busy repairing a window while this was happening, looking outside to see if the raccoon would emerge.

Sure enough, Beau found it curled in a ball, sleeping under the peach tree, later that afternoon.

“He doesn’t even have teeth”, Beau told me when things got even more dramatic: the baby raccoon somehow stumbled through the open door of the barn, and Beau had to pick it up again, to deposit back outside.

By late afternoon, Beau opened a can of cat food and left it outside the barn. “What if he can’t eat solids yet, with no teeth?” I asked him, worried. So a bowl of milk was also left outside: under the peonies.

By Wednesday, Beau had brought home a couple more cans of cat food, and we had named the creature Piccolo Bandito. We would look out for him in the afternoons, when we knew he liked to climb up on his little pile of logs, and dutifully check the barn cam at night to make sure he was eating his food (you can see an empty cat food can in the below footage of Piccolo Bandito scaling his Mt Everest log).

On Thursday night there was some drama on the barn cam when a skunk approached Piccolo Bandito’s favorite log, where it was cuddled up in a ball snoozing. Suddenly the skunk jumped away, turned around, and rushed into the night.

Yesterday was the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, and the first hot summer day we have had after thirteen consecutive rainy Saturdays. On our Isle, it’s the high season of lupins and farmland infants — we are training our peas and beans to climb up their strings, and thinning the tiny peaches off the crowded branches of the peach tree.

To celebrate the Solstice today, Beau and I joined the Ospreys Echo Island Cleanup. This meant boarding over twenty people onto Kayaks, so we could cross two different lobster boat channels off the southern tip of our island, paddling across to Webb Island, and Camp Island, where we picked up and bagged trash in various locations: later the motorboat operated by the Maine Island Trail Association would be picking up the bags we left out on these beaches. Tiffany, the Stonington Post-Mistress, who I see on a regular basis shipping and receiving boxes of Narrative Food items, was there with her daughter. The two Island Fellows shared a boat (both college graduates on placements in rural communities in Maine), and then various others who all joined this mission.

As soon as we got home, we went to check Piccolo Bandito’s favorite spots. Nowhere to be seen. On the one hand, this little kitten of a raccoon is absolutely adorable, on the other hand, an adult raccoon is no friend of mine (ewww). Some of you will remember the great lengths we had to go to when we moved into the farmhouse, and discovered that there was a ginormous raccoon nest (and latrine!) in the attic! (You can read about that incredibly stinky mess, here). So Beau and I were both hoping perhaps Piccolo Bandito had graduated from needing our care, and made his way into the forest to live a happy wild animal life.

But after his absence yesterday, this morning, Sunday, Piccolo Bandito was once again spotted on the Barn Cam doing his morning log climb (and tumbling off, clumsily), and then later, he ventured as far as our laundry line, his nose in the grass, hopefully learning to hunt for food. We have decided to stop feeding the little critter, and hope it learns to fend for itself. And then, if indeed he remains a fixture of our home, we are considering putting him in a little box and taking him to the closest animal rescue. This is a hard decision. Do any of you have advice for us? He is absolutely adorable, but like all little kits, he will soon grow up, grow teeth, and be way less cute. Let us know in the comments!