Cat food is nice, but birthday cake is better! That's what the juvenile raccoon on the left seems to be saying. He (?) and his mom and two siblings are crowded into a group eating cat food off the concrete patio of my sister's house in Ocean Shores, WA. Mom has her head down working on the food, but the three babies are all looking up; the one on the right looking off camera right, the middle one looking straight at you, and the left sibling looking right also, with his mouth open. Their bodies are gray and soft-looking, and their black and white masked faces make them look like bandits. The black starts on top of their heads, with black ears outlined in white; then white forehead, black eye masks, white muzzle and little black nose. A vertical black stripe runs from the nose straight up their faces to the black head. Their front paws look just like little gray hands, and are used just like ours, picking up bits of food. A strip of green vegetation runs across the top of the image, at the edge of the patio. This photograph was taken in August, and the babies were probably soon to be sent out on their own by their exhausted mom. Copyright Gail Storrs 2011.