We have had a bit of a mystery here at the Stronghold. My chair sits in one corner of the house, and nearly every evening for several weeks, there has been an odd scratching noise in this corner. We knew it had to be an animal, but until recently, we didn’t know what sort of animal or where it was — in the attic, in the wall, or outside on the deck.

The other evening, I was watching that bastion of great white sport, Hockey Night In Canada. (The availability of CBC is one of the blessings of living so close to Windsor.) In the middle of the broadcast, the odd scratching occurred yet again, but this time something different happened: the TV picture very briefly dropped out and returned. As I was hoping the picture would hold, I remembered that the antenna cable runs up the outside corner of the house, exactly where the scratching was occurring; thanks to that brief technical difficulty, it became clear the animal was outside the house.

When I came to that realization, I took a look out the bay window to see if I could spot the animal. And this time, I finally managed to see the source of the scratching: an apparently mischievous and obviously pudgy raccoon.

A few days later, the raccoon visited when it was light enough to get a picture, so I put my camera up to the (appropriately named) picture window and photographed the culprit.

We have no idea why this particular raccoon is so fond of that one particular spot on the house, but there must be something either intriguing or infuriating to him; he’s spent weeks scratching at the same corner. But we have no plans to engage him in conversation to learn his motivation.