Raccoons feeding in the pindo palm tree
 

I guess the smell of the ripened fruit in the pindo palm near the carport was too much for the raccoon family and they risked dealing with the thorny frond stalks to get at them. The fragrance of the fruit is right potent, and surely they could smell the fruit from quite a distance. It can about knock you out when you walk past the palm tree. It is supposed to be pretty tasty, but I haven't tried it myself. They don't last very long once the varmints discover that they are ripe.

The squirrels are also feeding on the fruit during the day, but they are not quite as welcome as the raccoons are around here.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVFLFtvBlWg

Video was taken using the new Browning BTC-7A game trail camera I bought recently. Takes 1080p video at 60fps and seems to do a pretty good job.

Time to give it a try and see what you have missing out on I suppose.
Raccoons love it, they must taste great. ;)

Just noticed this. I used to work with a guy who's wife made jelly with this fruit. He would bring some kind of chewy spicey bread she made also to smear jelly over. I could eat it all day long.

I usually will collect the fruits as well as the seed left behind when an animal eats the fruit, and throw them out all in the woods hoping they will propagate more palm trees. We see a lot of small palms sprouting, but the cabbage palms (we throw those seeds out too) look so similar to the pindo palm when small that I don't know which exactly are coming up. I would guess probably both, though, as they seem to propagate readily from seed.

We tend to do that type of seed dispersal a lot with anything that produces seeds that we want to have more of around here. Heck, we have citrus trees popping up here and there that are the result of just walking around eating tangerines and spitting the seeds out as we walk. We have 5 or 6 citrus trees coming up at the back corner of the garage that I have no idea how they got there.

We have "Gin and Tonic" trees that grew up from our discarded slices of kumquat from said drinks.... unfortunately they have yet to produce gin... :D

Too bad that doesn't work. Getting all the varmints drunk around here would probably make them easier for the local predators to snag. And certainly influence the squirrels into making unwise decisions when I am trying to put them in the crosshairs of my rifle. :hehe:

Caught on cam, it seems like they are having a midnight snack.

Actually it's nice to see them feeding on something natural, not human trash (no consolation for you, Rich, I know).