Lately, an animal has been coming into the barn during the night and helping the barn cats clean up their food. Up until a couple of mornings ago, my husband had been finding the food and drink dishes moved, sometimes long distances. Then, 2 days ago he began finding the lid off the old milk can that we keep the cat food in, so after last night's feeding he pushed the lid on tightly. We suspected a raccoon, but didn't think it would have strength enough to pry the lid off. When it's on tightly I have to take a heavy stick and give it a good wack or two to pry it loose.
This morning the lid was still in place, so DH (dear hubby) pulled it off and reached in to grab the cup we keep in there to measure the food......but to his great surprise, his hand touched a furry body! His immediate thought was that one of the cats had climbed in and been accidently trapped in there the previous night....but when he peered in......a masked face peered back at him!
He quickly slammed the lid back on and carried the can outside, and then guess what he did? Yes, that good man hurried down to the house and told me to come with my camera :)
And here's the result :) Cute, isn't he?
I managed a couple of other shots as he took off in great haste, but unfortunately they didn't come out well because he moved too quickly.
He must've managed to pry the lid up and climb into the can, only to have the lid shut after him. I hope the little fella came in the early hours and didn't spend the entire night in there. 
In December of 2006 we had a nasty episode with a very large raccoon coming into the barn and killing 3 of our cats, as well as wounding the legs of 2 others. We actually saw it, and tried to trap it, but it was too wily. Luckily we didn't see any evidence of its return, and the surviving kitties made it through the winter safely. You can read that post here if you'd like to. We've found that large raccoons, as well as stray male tomcats, can be very vicious killers of cats and kittens, so both are most unwelcome in our barn!
We hope this smaller guy doesn't turn out to be vicious, because he's a very persistent fellow, and I suspect he'll be back......but he'll find a cement block on the milk can!
Meanwhile, on the front porch feeder tray and beyond, at the feeders and in the trees, we've been seeing the cardinals coming more often lately. They're such a beautiful, welcome sight, especially against a backdrop of snow.
This fellow appears to be having a friendly conversation with Mr. House Sparrow,
.......while the little lady waits in the nearby Maple tree.
She usually eats at the hanging feeder, or below it on the ground. You can recognize her as a female, rather than a juvenile, because she has a red beak (she's wearing lipstick :), while the youngster has a dark bill.
I've seen as many as 6 Cardinals at a time recently, which is unusual. I don't remember seeing more than 4 feeding together previously.
More often than not, the House Sparrows are hogging the seed on the tray. This little Tree Sparrow (on the right) thought he should have the whole tray to himself on this particular occasion......
He was in no mood to share! Greedy little fellow :)
Some birds will chase all the others away, even their own kind, but these two were sharing nicely. The Cardinals don't appear to be aggressive. They're actually rather shy, especially the ladies.
And here's a sure sign of spring...the Red-winged Black Bird!
Jodi at Bloomingwriter has also seen them at her Nova Scotia home during the past week. It's amusing how excited we are to see them :) Do you see the little bit of yellow below the red? We're treated to a good look at both the red and yellow when they spread their wings. I saw my first Redwing of the season, a female, on February 7th. See how different they are from the males? not black, but brown, and there are no red and yellow stripes on their wings. Unfortunately the colors didn't show up well on the wings of these 2 males, but I suspect there'll be other opportunities.
Thanks everyone for your very welcome comments on the squirrel post. We can enjoy him because he's the only one, and he doesn't eat much :) I sure hope he hasn't found my tulip bulbs! We rarely see squirrels because the barn cats keep them away, or eat them if they can catch one. Actually, we haven't seen our little guy for several days. With the occasional warmer days the cats have begun wandering down from the barn and he may have decided it was time to get out of town! I prefer to think that than the darker scenerio.
We'll stop feeding the birds on the porch tray soon, and let them eat at the hanging feeders, which are safely out of reach of the cats. Happily, there are only a few naughty cats that think they should supplement their diet with a juicy bird or two, so we don't have many casualties, for which I'm thankful. I've been known to yell at them like a wild woman if they show up on the porch!
With all this wildlife, I'm thinking we could start a petting zoo ;)
