Visitor by Night

[houseisland]

I came home late last night to find an opposum harvesting windfalls from my fruit trees. It and my cats were politely ignoring each other.

I haven't seen one in my neighborhood for years, not since the coyotes moved in -- the cats and the coyotes do not politely ingnore each other, by the way.

Anyway, before it departed it asked me to ask Platypus to say "G'day Mate!" to all its long lost Aussie cousins.






Opposum at Wikipedia

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Infraclass: Marsupialia

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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[FatalException0E]

We had one of them in the house when I was a kid. It hid in the garage during the day then came in at night. We used to leave the door to the garage open at night because the cats' litter box was out there. I went to the kitchen at night to get a drink and thought I heard one of the cats munching on kibble. I went to pet it and noticed that the critter backed away from my hand and didn't let me touch it...so I turned the light on to see what was up. That started a rousing chase involving me, my parents, a couple of open doors and brooms and sticks.

Fun times.

[Platypus]

Haven't seen or heard much of that guy's cousins for a while...

I used to occasionally hear one rasping from the big tree out front, or thumping across my flat roof, but I think the high concentration of cats and dogs in the area might put them off.

[El_Squid]

Kill 'em on sight, if at all possible. Bearers of rabies and vermin, those overgrown tree rats are truly a pest around these parts. And, their pals the skunks!

[houseisland]

Kill 'em on sight, if at all possible. Bearers of rabies and vermin, those overgrown tree rats are truly a pest around these parts. And, their pals the skunks!

The population density of opposums isn't large enough to worry about them much. As I said I hadn't seen one in years.

Skunks are another matter. They seem to be thriving -- I don't imagine the coyotes tangle much with them. They don't cause much trouble unless dogs get them rattled, and then the trouble is limited to a few hours of bad smell.

Mammalian wild life in my area consists of bears, coyotes, beavers, muskrats, racoons, opposums, skunks, squirrels, bats, rats, mice, shrews, voles, etc.

Bears, I never see, but I know they exist within a 30 minute bike ride of my house.

Coyotes, I see all too often.

Beavers and muskrats, I see mostly as road kill down along the river.

Racoons and opposums seem to have thinned out somewhat with the arrival of the coyotes.

As said, skunks seem to be thriving -- and the population of small rodents has plummetted since their arrival -- no need for rat traps in my garage anymore.

The squirrels denude my hazelnut trees every year, but they have thinned out a little with the arrival of the coyotes.

Bats, I see quite often.

And as I said, the smaller rodents are largely gone -- my cats never had much of an impact here except in the house; rodents never came in, and outside the cats were too lazy or too timid to takle things the size of rats and squirrels, although they were interested in them.

Oh for the brute, psychopathic cat I had as a kid.

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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!