Opossum wandering through the yard

[LCHIEN]

Seen these guys at night but this is the first time during the daytime. Internet says that they are normally nocturnal but if hungry they will forage during the day

[Jim Frye]

We had one wander through during the day one time and our boxer spotted it before it could get across. Sadie literally stomped it into roadkill before I could get to her to stop things. But yeah, nocturnal is the norm.

[duramen]

When I was younger and lived by myself, an opossum moved into the attic. I thought it was cats on the roof until one evening when a puddle of dark liquid plopped onto my desk. I saw it happen. It was urine. The attic was covered with big-dog-size feces everywhere. Our county's vermin control experts told me what to do. I rented a wire cage trap, cleaned up the mess, and blocked every outside access with chicken wire or steel wool. The trap was a long square wire "tube" with flip-down flaps at both ends. I baited it with cat food and waited. I tried to read a book, but it was hard to focus.

An hour an a half later, I heard the trap close, and then BAM! ... BAM! ... BAM! ... BAM! ... BAM! ... BAM! ... It was loud, very very loud. The trapped opossum was the size of a Honda Civic and it was VERY ANGRY. That is when I realized I had a problem: The cage was 1 inch wire mesh all over, and the handle was just another wire with the ends looped around two points on the top. Whenever I reached for the handle, the opossum tried to bite my hand off ... at the elbow.

I used a large channel lock pliers to grab the handle, and that's when I realized I had another problem: How to get the long trap out of the attic? It was easy to get it up there, but now it contained a dish of wet cat food and one enraged opossum. Would the angled flap hold against the weight of the opossum while I brought it down through the attic access hole? What if the flap opened and the opossum got out, inside the house? I was on my own.

I managed to get the trap down from above. I didn't want to be under it when I lowered it down. I loaded it in the back of my pickup. I put two freeways between my house and a large vacant lot where I released the opossum. The lot had bushes and trees and looked "opossum friendly." I opened the trap, but the opossum was in no hurry to leave. Eventually it lumbered out slowly and turned toward me with an expression of utter contempt. It snarled menacingly, and then slowly walked away towards the bushes.

[cwsmith]

Nice shots Loring, what lens were you using?

CWS

[LCHIEN]

Olympus OM-D mirrorless camera the 14-150 mm f4 lens has a 2x crop factor so its like a 28-300 mm zoom on a full frame camera, and it was at full zoom and I cropped it a little bit too.

[cwsmith]

Thank Loring,

My Canon 80D has a crop factor of 1.6 and I do have an zoom that goes out to 250 mm, so that would be about 400 mm. I liked the detail you got with those images, is why I asked.

CWS

[capncarl]

They are vicious looking aren’t they?

I see quite a few of these critters dead on the road, and catch a few in the 2 Armadillo traps I run in the yard spring , summer a fall. Like the Armadillo, I consider the opossum one of Gods little critters and relocate them to somewhere safe. One of the most convenient relocation sites for me is a canoe/kayak launch site at the 32 bridge ( probably the 32 Bridge in Luke Bryan’s song). It has miles and miles of creek swamp. One week I caught and relocated 4 Armadillos and started wondering if they were coming back as fast as I hauled them off! I decided to mark them, and sprayed them with orange day glow paint while in the cage. The first orange Armadillo I released at the 32 bridge just moseyed down the trail toward a crowd of kayakers like he was showing off his new paint job! Lots of whoops and what the heck is that as they scampered out of its way! We got quiet a chuckle out of that! and wondered what kind of stories would come from this.

For most homeowners an occasional visit by a opossum is harmless, and I have read somewhere that there are more opossums living in the city limits than in the woods. I guess they scrounge through garbage cans and eat pet food in the back yards. They reportedly eat thousands of ticks! and roaches and other insects, so they aren’t completely useless.

[LCHIEN]

Yeah, I have no desire to run him off. Harmless and they eat pests.