Raccoons and Brick Wall, Mare Island. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. August 30, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A group of nocturnal raccoons emerges from beneath a brick wall with boarded up windows and doors at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California.
I’ll have to admit that wildlife photography was more or less the furthest thing from my mind when I was shooting this scene of an artificially lit weathered brick wall in the core of the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard near the end of August. The thing that interested me in this shot was the shape of the pipe attached to the outer wall of this building against the bricks, along with the way it snaked between various windows and doors. So I set up the tripod and made a couple exposures. While making the second one I suddenly thought I saw something move – which seemed completely unexpected. Although it was much darker that it appears in this shot, I eventually saw a furry shape emerging from a gap between the sidewalk and the building… and then another…and another. Eventually there may have been as many as a half dozen raccoons in this little cluster of critters.
It may be hard to see them in this reduced size version of the photograph, but they are the small fuzzy area near the lower right below the valve on the wall. On the full size image it is possible to make out a few paws and the vague outline of their faces.
This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
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