Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Ssssssstay Away!!! Hisssssss


One of the neighborhood kids set a live trap in the woods, just to see what he would find. He had no idea that his capture would be (go figure!) such a wild, dangerous looking creature.

He was afraid to open the cage himself, so I very carefully let out the possum, who by then was thoroughly peeved. He hissed at me as I snapped his picture, then slowly made my way back up the hill, facing him the whole time. Other than hissing, he 'played possum', and didn't try to attack, thank goodness.

The neighborhood kids and I had a little talk, and I don't think they will be playing with live traps anymore. In fact, they will probably be staying out of the woods completely for a while.


7 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness! Reminds me of when I lived on a country road and thought I had the screen door shut for the night to bring in the cool night air....heard something moving in the middle of the kitchen late at night? Turns out it was a baby opossum and it didn't want to leave my garbage can nor the house! I turned on the light to hear some hissing and decided that the mop was my weapon of choice and scooted it right out the way it came in!

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  2. It is all an act, you know! Possums are mostly insect eaters--garbage and leaves are their diatary preferances. I remember when we cornered one when we were kids--do you remember? That oppossum had such sharp teeth and hissed so menacingly, we took off running. (giggle)

    I love this photo! The detail and sheer impudence of that little oppossum just fills the eye. I have to admit--this is one of my favorite pictures!!! (grin)

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  3. he's fierce looking, but still cute :) awesome shot! i've never been that close to one! i'm glad you had a chat with the kids!

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  4. He has a Jimmy Durante nose. (snicker)

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  5. What a face! Possums used to visit our backyard when we lived in California, but I've never seen one in AZ.

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  6. He looks absolutely positively pissed off ! Hopefully he will never see the Monty Python movie with the attack rabbits in it, it would not be a good thing if he learned to leap for the jugular vein...
    :-)

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  7. Oh, I love opossums! This is a great photo! Right, the act is mostly for show. This one seems to have banged or scraped its nose, poor thing. I was lucky enough to raise some that had been orphaned. When you get them really young, they can be incredibly sweet and snuffly. I want to hold it, but I know that would be a bad idea :)

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