Camera Catches Raccoon Adorably Trying to Catch Falling Snow

Here’s a video that should put a smile on your face and a fuzzy feeling in your heart: a home security camera in Washington State has captured footage of a raccoon trying to catch snowflakes falling from the sky.

YouTuber Timothy Ellis has a floodlight security camera mounted to his house’s deck, and it caught the playful raccoon frolicking in Ellis’s snow-covered yard in Everett, Washington, on the evening of December 19th, 2022. The 27-second clip (spotted by Boing Boing) shows the trash panda repeatedly standing on its hind legs and reaching toward the sky to catch snowflakes only to have each one whiz past him and disappear into the thick layer of snow below.

The puzzled raccoon repeatedly searches with its paws for the fallen flakes on the ground before reaching heavenward for another attempt.

“I’m not a professional ‘YouTuber,’ but I do make quite a bit of video with my phone, my drone, my GoPro, my security cameras, and my dashcam,” Ellis on his YouTube channel. “Follow along for interesting goings-on in and around the Everett, WA area.”

As home security cameras become ubiquitous in modern life, they are regularly making headlines for capturing glimpses of the natural world that would otherwise have gone unseen, from giant fireballs in the sky to moose shedding their antlers.

Like many other urban animals, raccoons are usually nocturnal, sleeping during the daytime and emerging at night to forage for food. They’re known as one of the world’s most omnivorous animals, having a diet that is made up of about 40% invertebrates, 33% plants, and 27% vertebrates.

Unexpected videos like this footage captured by Ellis provide us with an amusing glimpse into the everyday lives of raccoons that are usually hidden from human eyes.