Raccoon

One of my pleasures at Wal*Mart is to take my lunchbreak sitting in my office (i.e. front passenger seat of my car), and listening to stories or podcasts on my iPod. If it's still daylight I can either watch people wandering about the parking lot, or more usually I park facing the "wilderness" that abuts the employees' parking area and watch any wildlife that happens past.

Yesterday I was sitting there quietly when a raccoon stepped out of the bushes right in front of my car.

This isn't the actual raccoon, but one like it. I sat entranced for several minutes as it wandered back and forth before disappearing from my field of view. As this picture shows, a raccoon's front legs are more arm-like than in other fauna I am familiar with, and this one's gait seemed more like a monkey scampering along than a fox or cat.

This sighting was a double pleasure for me. Beth and I always enjoy encounters with wildlife, and often spotted urban foxes in Ealing (though not everyone enjoys the foxes), but this was my first good sighting of a creature we don't have in England, and a reminder that I'm on a different continent. I could not have been more enchanted and delighted (though maybe more suprised) if it had been a koala bear.