Saturday, April 17, 2021

AtoZ of Animals I Have Met: ‘O’ is for Opossums #AtoZBloggingChallenge#

Although I live in Brooklyn, New York, the area I live in is a lovely mixture of big city and rural area. I have often called my backyard a forest because of all the trees growing in the neighborhood. In fact, during the summer my backyard truly seems to be nothing less than a small woods area. You never really have to worry about people spying on you, because they’d need x-ray vision to see through the trees.

There is also an abundance of wildlife—besides the loud, chaotic, extremely annoying parties, which are, thankfully, a thing of the past and future—which includes a few feral cats; at least 16 types of birds (thanks to a nearby bird sanctuary) including cardinals, a red hawk family (watching them court was amazing), chickadees, blue jays (very annoying), a woodpecker (Woodie wasn’t joking: they really do laugh!), and others and an unknown quantity of squirrels.

And then, there are two more animals, both of which tend to be a little shy. That’s fine, I don’t need to be on a first name basis with the raccoons (there is one that is enormous and a little bit scary; it’s pretty old, I think, and it’s been through the mill a few times, which is probably how it lost its tail) and there are the opossums.

I like the opossums, probably because the ones that come are usually pretty young. I think their moms bring them and then leave. The poor babies are so ugly they’re cute and they win over my heart every single time. Actually, I haven’t seen an opossum for a couple of years. In fact, the last time I did, I even took a picture of him. For some reason, Opossums look like their name should be Gertrude or Joseph, or at least in my opinion.

I’d like to share the story that I wrote on Facebook that accompanied the photo of Joseph:

 “Last night I was sitting in the kitchen when I heard this shriek and I thought one of the cats had caught a bird (it was definitely not a mouse--too loud and low-pitched). I didn't think anything else about it until I heard this giant bag of leaves I have on my porch, rustling.

Since I’d heard it the night before, I knew who it was: Joseph, the opossum. Since I'm smart (sometimes) I connected the dots and figured Joseph might be in trouble, so I went out to look.

The poor little guy, whose name should probably be changed to Snoopy, had gotten his tail all tangled up in the bag. He knows me & usually isn't afraid, but this time, when I grabbed the bag to help him, he pulled until he got free and then took off. Of course, opossums don't take off very quickly, but still...
See, this is one of the reasons we should NEVER leave plastic bags out in nature: nature is curious and tries to check things out, and very often gets into trouble. Snoopy Joseph was lucky that I was there and could help him. Most aren't that lucky. The photo is a slightly younger Joseph.”

A funny thing happened about six months later. First, though, I have to mention that Missy Prissy tends to climb up my window screens to let me know she’d like to come in. That being said, one night a terrible racket on the porch caused me to jerk awake and bang my head on the ceiling about 10 feet or so above my bed. I looked over whence came the noise and saw this big form splatted on the screen on my bedroom window.

My first thought was “What the heck is that?” and then, I started to laugh: it was Joseph. The only reason that I could think of that might explain his being on the screen was that he had seen Missy Prissy climbing the screens and she got to come in. I guess he figured that if it worked for her, why shouldn’t it work for him. He tried all three screens and, as I think about it now, that may have been the last time I saw him.

Anyway, now that you know what the wildlife of Brooklyn, New York is really about, maybe you’ll have a different perspective about this crazy, wildlife city. I sure do.

 

 

Copyright © 17 April 17, 2021.  Mary E. Purpari. All Rights reserved