Virginia Opossum (Didelphis virginiana) At The Bird Feeders

February 17th, 2014. I was just getting up when I noticed that all the birds at the feeders had scattered. This usually means that a cat or dog is wandering through, or a hawk is flying overhead. However, when I looked out the window, I was very surprised to see a possum - a Virginia Opossum (Didelphia virginiana) - snuffling around in the seed hulls underneath the bird feeders. It was in the shade but I grabbed my camera just in case. These photos were taken hand-held at 1/20^th of a second so…

It was standing with its back towards me. I wasn’t terribly hopeful that it would turn around. I expected it to wander off across the clearing and into the woods but…

it turned its head just and I caught a glimpse of its face.

To my surprise, it turned around and…

It continued to nose out seeds.

Something distracted it and…

it decided it was time to leave. It moved quite rapidly towards the house and turned towards the woods.

It’s very unusual to see a possum in the morning. I don't think I'll see another one during the day any time soon.

Identification Resources: 

University of Georgia Museum of Natural History: Virginia Opossum (Didelphis virginiana)

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- Opossum (Didelphis virginiana)

Night Visitor

Some of us were fussing around outside in preparation for going to Lake Oconee when the cry went up that there was a possum – Opossum (Didelphis virginiana) - up a tree where we parked the cars. Apparently it had been snuffling around on the ground when W drove up and spooked it. It scrambled up the nearest tree. I have to confess that I’d only seen possums wandering aimlessly on roads; I’d never seen on up a tree so I was interested.

So, in shifts with no apparent organization, we gathered near the tree to try our luck at getting the obligatory photographs. This posed somewhat of a challenge because the possum was high enough that the infrared spotting light that allows us to focus in the dark wasn’t strong enough. So we used our led flashlights to get enough light on the subject to try to focus; this was also iffy but it did work. Flash did the rest…

View at a ‘distance’ It’s a young possum.

A closer view. It seemed almost oblivious to our presence but I guess that’s the nature of possums.

A view from the other side of the branch; it’s ‘better side.’ You can see its tail curling off the branch at the bottom of the photo.

A closer view from this angle.

Postscript: W posted one of his photos in another photographic forum. It was interesting that photographers in that group – many of them experienced – had never heard or thought of using an alternative light source to facilitate photographing something in the ‘distance’ in the dark.
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- Opossum (Didelphis virginiana)

Opossum (Didelphis virginiana)

We live in the country. It’s not out in the really wild country but it’s clearly outside the surbuban area surrounding Atlanta. We enjoy the wildlife. Periodically, however, we seem to suffer from possum (Opossum, Didelphis virginiana) overload. It’s been like that for the last month or so.

We don’t want to kill them but we need to thin their numbers around the house a little. So we use a live trap baited with peanut butter to catch them and relocate them to a wild area where they have plenty of woods to roam in. The count is now up to four; a couple of big ones and a couple of smaller ones.

Last night we caught a young possum with a glossy black coat, a white face …

Bright eyes…

And a cute nose…
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