Midnight Fauna

I went down for a meal around midnight (as I often do), and found... visitors outside the kitchen window in the darkness. Quite noisy visitors, both in terms of rustling around through the foliage, and in terms of vocalizing. At least, I presume they were plural, as most single critters out at night aren’t so vocal. There were several different varieties of sounds, none of them quite familiar: chittering, cooing, and, once, a sort of bark/scream. I tried to record them, but didn’t get anything very audible. There was also a very strong musky smell. It didn’t smell like angry skunk, but a skunk family is certainly one of the possibilities. Others that have at times been evidenced in this neighborhood are raccoons and opossum.

(goes to youtube for animal noise videos…) Probably skunk, maybe raccoon, definitely NOT opossum.