2018: Raccoons visiting/decimating my peach trees

So I have had a couple of peach trees in my backyard for two decades ... and about every other year, they produce a HUGE amount of crop. 2018 is going to be pretty good ... but I was puzzled that a week or two before full ripeness, a number of peaches were dropping from my trees.

I got my answer Monday night (August 13th) as I was on the back deck around Midnight last night with our new puppy and heard some noise. When I aimed the flashlight at the peach trees, two sets of eyes glowed back at me ... and one climbed up the tree. The other stayed on the ground and stared me down - so needless to say, I was "go pee quickly Bliss!" because I was worried they might come over to see her.

I didn't have my "zoom" flashlight, so could only see the glow of their eyes and a faint outline ... but the one on the ground looked quite big. They knocked down dozens of peaches last night ... and I'm sure they will be back every night as they know there is a yummy food source. Haven't had this major of an issue before with our peach trees and I don't have an issue "sharing" with animals. But the raccoons knock a dozen+ peaches off while nibbling on just one, so it's pretty darn wasteful. These raccoons will really thin it out before full ripeness - darn!

Since I was wrapping up my evaluation of webcams, I setup one to watch my back yard. This footage is taken while it's pitch black and is using the Infra-Red LED for light. I count at least 3 raccoons.

So after 3 confirmed nights in a row (I'm sure they were coming earlier) of raccoons "visiting" (decimating!) my peach trees, I setup a light to see if that might spook them off. No luck ... although does provide a LOT better image quality for the webcam! Bonus end-feature of this video is you get to see a peach fall ... and me pick it up! ;-)

Use the controls to play, step, pause, slow-down, and/or speed-up the animation.