Nature Done Wright

When I saw a raccoon wandering around my backyard on Thursday evening, I reached for A Natural History of Raccoons, written by my friend Dorcas McClintock and illustrated by J. Sharkey Thomas.

It is packed with useful information, and written in a diverting style.

The chapter titles tell the story: "Curiosity and their Senses," "Between Dusk and Dawn," "Feeling, Dabbling, and Dousing" and on and on.

Here's a section from "Between Dusk and Dawn":

"Awake and stirring in their dens by sunset, raccoons wait to set out on the tide of night.

"Dusk means a changing of the guard as creatures of the night replace those of day, and raccoons, like all predators, take advantage of the confusion that occurs during transition.

"Many a crayfish is snatched as it sidles out of its burrow to begin a night of feeding an aquatic vegetation."

She quotes her friend Sterling North describing his raccoon, Rascal,  when he discovers  his first clutch of Snapping Turtle eggs:

"Up they came, all thirty-four of them, almost as big as golf balls. …  For the next half hour Rascal was with us physically, but elsewhere in spirit, obviously in some realm where gourmet raccoons feast for eternity, their eyes on the stars while their swift hands and sharp little teeth tear open turtle eggs to gorge upon them."

It's the best book on raccoons, ever.