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.
Click on an image to view a larger image

Related post:
- 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…
Click on an image to view a larger image

Related posts:
- Snow: Something To Show For It

Snow: Something To Show For It

OK - those of you up north, please stifle your giggles. We folk down South appear to be making a mountain out of a molehill but… We’ve done better with respect to snow in the past but, so far, this has been a tough winter. We don’t get Alberta Clippers very often so it’s a big deal when we do. Temperatures have rarely been above freezing for more than two weeks now and winds between 10 and 20 mph have blown day and night. We’re just not used to it.

The snow had been predicted and we knew there wouldn’t be much of it – about an inch at most, they said. This wasn’t going to be about snow, it was going to be about icy roads. The snow started to fall at about 3:30 pm and showers continued on and off until just after midnight. Because the weather has been cold for several weeks, the earth and roads were cold. Although the snow didn’t accumulate, it melted on the roads. The road surfaces remained wet and the moisture froze when the temperatures fell rapidly as the sun set. The roads became slick with black ice in many places.

We ended up with about 1/2 an inch – a dusting. Probably doesn’t seem worth it, does it? Bitterly cold in the wind but sunny and quite pleasant when sheltered from the wind. I walked down into the woods and around the field. It was pleasant to walk. The dusting of snow was visually pleasing and it was easy to walk, no slipping or sliding in deeper snow. And I could see things I wouldn’t normally see.

Interestingly, I didn’t see any deer hoof prints. The deer must have moved to lower elevations. But the usual suspects were there …

A possum. Along the patio bricks in front of the house. This really wasn’t a surprise since I’ve encountered one on the ramp to our front door on a couple of occasions. But they were a treat to see.

A Cottontail rabbit. These tracks, on the path near the pond above the creek, were a surprise. I often see rabbits along the drive from the house to the road, but not in the woods. I love these tracks. The rabbit has stopped to listen. The front paw prints are nestled between the hind paw prints.

A cat. This cat had come along the path at the edge of the woods from the property next door – I saw the tracks as I was coming along that path – across in front of the house and down the drive where I first saw and photographed them.

And me.
Click on an image to view a larger image

Related posts:
- Snow Day
- Snow Day, 2009