Procyonidae and Sciuridae

In the past couple of weeks, I've had some nice encounters with wildlife who just happened to be eating or looking forward to eating birdseed that we put out for them. For these night shots, it's the first time I had tried out the ISO 200 setting on raccoons. On the same evening as I took these photos, I also saw one of the groundhogs that they've been feeding. FIFO, who, with the help of a spray water bottle, has been conditioned to tolerate raccoons, squirrels, does not like groundhogs or opossums. That's putting it mildly.

These raccoons are on my parents' deck. I think the maximum number I've personally seen is seven at one time. When the babies are tiny, they are particularly adorable. I've never been too concerned about rabies, because, with rare exceptions, they've looked rather healthy. I, however, don't exactly go out of my way to pet them either. As I've mentioned quite some time ago, I've only seen one raccoon on the deck at my house. I think my parents' place is just more popular due to its proximity to the Eno River.
Here is one of my very own squirrels. I was outside on my deck and this one was too interested in the cups of seed I was holding to run away.