Friday wildlife from PalMom

My daughter and I recently saw an opossum during the day. It was in the middle of an arterial standing still and bleeding from its nose. Sigh.

One time a long time ago I saw raccoons during the day quite often, and then not at all. I was told later that there had been a distemper epidemic among the local raccoons, and the ones that were out in daytime were actually sick. One young coon actually ran right by me as I was weeding the yard.

I am wondering if the poor opossum on the road was sick.

OT: I do not have anything to add, other than to say I really like your new blog. I thought you made denialism a great blog. Keep up the the good work. We will butt heads once in a while as I am a smoker and still do not believe the second hand smoke (SHS) crap. But I like this this blog and you can continue to hit me over the head over my SHS denialism. Still wish you were my doctor. You would probably be glad that I wasn't your patient. Like my father, I can be very ornery.

Oooooh, CUTE!!!! :)

Those giant rats, I mean oppossums, used to come to our porch to eat our pet's food. I know they are fierce and bitey and vicious, but I think they're quite adorable in their way.

Chris -

Baby 'coons are actually often quite active during the day and a little too fearless when they are. Momma is usually pretty much zonked and unable to focus enough attention on them and so they will do really foolish things.

Not to say it wasn't a distemper issue, but during the time of year there are a lot of young about (early summer around these parts) you will see a lot of them during the day.

Perky Skeptic -

I tried tanning a hide for the first time, using the one previously worn by the possum that was getting into our garbage at night. The plan was to stuff it (which I did, badly) after I had tanned it. Learned that you have to be were thorough - which I was not. Looked bad, smelled bad - the only winners were a buddy's dogs - they were very fond of fresh flesh.

Thanks for the information on the young raccoons.

They did disappear for a while, and are now coming back in larger numbers. I now see them wandering through my neighborhood at night. Just this morning when I woke up for a bit before sunrise I looked out the window and saw one going down the street.

Once saw a 'possum on the patio (at night) with 5 babies attached.

I, of course, love all of the wildlife, but I've never been able to find opossums cute. Like an unnatural joining of rat and porcupine.