I went out to turn the sprinkler off in the front yard last night and found this cutie climbing up the tree. By the time Randy got there with the camera she/he was sitting there watching us. I know there are several adults that wander the neighborhood, we are right across the street from an undeveloped area and they wander through back yards looking for dog food. This the first youngster I have seen. Yeah, I have this bad habit of naming the critters that I find in my yard. Night time visitor ( photo / image / picture from toni's Garden )
Opossums are cute, but they also have a lot of teeth! If your cats are out at night, Toni, you may want to start keeping them in. We have 'possums here, and once when I was going to the barn I frightened one. It fell over, and I was terrified that I had caused a 'possum heart attack. Then reason kicked in and I remembered they play dead when scared.
The stray cats have lived around the possums all their lives, I think they have come to a gentlemanly agreement to leave each other alone. The only cat that is anywhere near being mine is just now beginning to come inside and has been staking it's claim to the house and my legs but spends most of his nights on the roof under a limb of the large pecan tree. I think he is up there surveying all that he owns. Many years ago, Rambo our Field Spaniel, had to go out back to do his nightly business before bed and started making a really strange barking sound. We went to check it out and found him barking at a possum, playing possum. I brought Rambo inside while Randy scooped up the possum with a shovel and dropped him over the fence into the alley.
UGH! I had no idea there were Opossum's here in Ontario until a few years ago. I always thought they were a southern creature. I started noticing them as roadkill a few years ago. The first ones I saw were small, and they get increasingly bigger each year. Last year we had one living under one of the buildings at work. I don't know what they eat, or where they live, and had no idea they could climb trees! I always thought of them as giant rats LOL
I know they eat grubs, that's what the holes in yards are from....them digging for grubs. This fall as I work in the yard I am going to start putting the grubs I find in a container and setting it out at night for them. I usually toss them into the street to be squished or become bird food. I really never thought of them as climbers either but this little one was about halfway up the tree when I first saw it.
A close-up photo, the little thing was maybe 10 inches long. ( photo / image / picture from toni's Garden ) I have caught two or three grownups in the trap and had the city pick them up. They release them in a wooded area along the Trinity River not far from the animal shelter.
I raised two baby possums whose mother had been hit and killed. They are the cutest things and easy to raise. I made a bed or I should say den in an old tool box and put a towel in to sleep under. I thought after about six weeks that they were being good little possums staying in their home made den. I woke up in the middle of the night a bit later and was surprised to find the possums walking around along the curtains & curtain rod over the window in my bedroom. By morning they were back in the tool box asleep under the towel. They had climbed up the drapes. Those little guys will fool you. Shortly after that they went to a wildlife rehab center. Possums and cats get along great. I had one that lived under my storage shed. I fed all the neighborhood strays and one night after dark I went on the porch to put the food out,I counted, one two three,,four but were supposed to be only three. I turned the porch light on and there was Pete the possum waiting patiently with the cats. They all ate together.
They are cute as babies, but I think rather ugly as they get bigger. There's some that wonder around here, but luckily they haven't decided to call it home yet. Wish I could say the same for that darn armadillo.
Well I guess they are sort of cute. If you raise chickens you do not want to see them around your chicken coupe unless you have it totally fenced in. They love eggs and can really raise heck with your chickens. Climbing is one thing they do well. They also love to steal my suet off of my feeder. So I bring it in at night.
Great pictures Toni....cute little thing but do they come at you when they get bigger like some critters? I had a woodchuck passing through one time and and he was not very friendly. He started coming right at us and we were only standing there watching where he was going, hoping it wasn't going to be our garage.
