Reflections - Possum Puzzle

11-28-20 Possum in North Garden

The possum puzzled me. It crouched on the north garden stubble and raised its chin toward the afternoon sun.

Bang. On this first day of the 2020 antler deer season, a hunter must have spotted a buck in our woods. Spence lets a trusted neighbor’s group hunt at Wells Wood to help limit deer damage in the garden. Bang.

The possum didn’t flinch. It played dead while keeping its eyes on my husband and me. We stood a don’t-disturb-the-critter distance away.

Unable to contain the obvious question, I blurted, “Why is the possum out in the daytime?”

Spence adjusted his tractor cap. “Maybe it’s sick.”

It’s rare, not impossible, for this nocturnal marsupial to be out in the day. In the last twenty years of visiting then living at Wells Wood, Spence and I had seen two other possums in daylight.

On a sunny March afternoon, we’d spotted a trail of prints in the snow. Five thin digits straddled a line drawn by a bare tail. Heads bent toward our boots, we followed the trail through the north garden, across the old driveway, and around a hemlock tree.

The trail ended.

2-17-2007 Possum in Hemlock

Puzzled, we looked up and into the large black eyes of a possum staring at us. From a branch at our shoulder level, the critter had observed our every step. I stepped back in deference to the sharp teeth in its long snout, pulled my soon-to-be-drowned-during-a-creek-walk camera from my pocket, and clicked the shutter release.

Walking on another snowy day years later, a hiss, choo-choo sounded overhead. Our heads jerked up.

On a maple branch four feet above us, a baby possum glared, straightened, then sat like a statue.

12-1-13 Possum in Maple

Both those possums had clung to tree branches. This one rested on the ground. “Sick” made sense. The possum watched me circle to take its photo just as the red hawk had before it died last July.

An orange clad hunter walked out of our woods and up the old driveway.

Spence waved to the tall man with a rifle slung over his orange-jacketed back.

“Maybe the hunters disturbed the possum in its den.” I took the cap off my zoom lens and peered through the viewfinder. “It looks healthy to me.”

The next afternoon, I inserted a photo—of helper-cat Ande holding down auditing paperwork—into my November 29, “Misleading Ledger” blog.

Spence’s tractor rumbled across the south field to the house. The front door opened with a swoosh. “Almost ran over the possum,” Spence said. “It wasn’t bothered by the tractor. It looked up and wiggled its nose.” The door swooshed closed.

I hit the publish button, grabbed my camera, and joined Spence on the deck.

Below us, the possum wobble-walked with its pink nose millimeters from the ground. Oblivious to the gawking humans, it paused to scarf up morsels.

Spence folded his arms across his chest. “I hope it doesn’t go into Mr. Hooper.”

Spence’s portable hoop house gleamed in the sunshine twenty feet from the possum.

“It seems more interested in eating slugs and insects in the yard.” I rubbed Spence’s back.

“I hope it’s eating voles. They do a lot of damage in the garden.” He left.

The tractor rumbled to the garage.

I gazed at the possum zigzagging, circling, and making figure eights on the south lawn. Hunger drove this critter. When I moved to get a better angle of the possum’s tail, the deck floor creaked.

The critter stopped, played possum, but stared at me with bright eyes. Its white and gray fur lay wild-animal smooth. It resembled an alert cat surveying its owner’s peculiar behavior—not a dying animal resting in pain or exhaustion.

Bang. The rifle shot in the valley announced the first ever Pennsylvania deer hunting on a Sunday.

The possum didn’t take its eyes off me.

I didn’t take my eyes off the possum, but I blinked first and contemplated the possum’s reason for breaking its nocturnal habit.

Not sick. Disturbed by hunters possibly. Out in the day to eat definitely.

Inside, I checked my theories online.

Some facts surprised me:

Possums have fifty teeth, more than any other mammal.

One possum eats about five thousand ticks a year.

Possums night vision is poor so they find food with hearing and scent.

The reasons for possums being out during the day didn’t—sickness, disturbed by hunters or dogs, and hunger. Especially nursing females.

Our possum could be a jill. I did the math. If she got pregnant in October, the end of mating season, she would still have a litter of joeys nursing in her pouch. She would need to forage in the daytime to keep them fed.

Though I couldn’t expect to see the nocturnal animal three days in a row, I peeked out from my umbrella during the all day rain Monday.

She didn’t appear.

Nor did she emerge Tuesday and Wednesday when fourteen inches of snow fell.

“The possum’s holed up keeping warm and dry,” Spence said each time I reported I couldn't find her.

Whatever her reasons for staying in or venturing out, she can dine on Wells Wood garden pests any time.