Another guest at the Duck Coop Hotel

This one just came for breakfast.

The quality of the shot isn't the best but you can see that one of them is not of the avian family. Here's another shot a little later.

Do pets choose us?

Apparently they do. Lynn has relocated Gertrude several times from either coop. This pic is from late afternoon yesterday. She just keeps coming back. I can't blame her. The coops are warm, comfortable, and have both food and water. Kinda like a hotel. Lynn has been asking if we should give her a place in the barn. I am not sure. But I may not have a choice if Gertie(named by Lynn) keeps coming back.

Magnolia

Every once and awhile a sweet, gentle soul enters the world.  

Newest addition to the family?

This little girl or boy first showed up under the bird feeders a few days ago, around 4:30-5pm.  This is the first time I've seen an opossum out and about in daylight.  They are a nocturnal, slow-moving animal; the only marsupial in North America.  It is extremely rare to see them this far north in New York (another sign of climate change perhaps?).  They do not hibernate, and are sensitive to the cold; prone to frostbite on the tips of their ears and tails, which this little being has signs of.  They are opportunistic feeders, eating everything from carrion to berries and seeds.  Here, she is thoroughly enjoying the sunflower seeds thrown from the feeders by our pack of red squirrels and flock of blue jays.  She stayed for about an hour and then moseyed under our back stoop.  She continued to show up at the feeders for the next couple of days anywhere from 3:00-5:00 p.m.

Then, on Saturday, I saw her once again and then she disappeared.  I assumed back under the stoop for some shut-eye.  I headed out to the coops around 5:00 p.m. for the evening feeding and tuck in. I opened the big door to the hen/duck coop and there, hanging out in a bed of straw, is my little 'possum friend. "Well, hello there," I say.  "You're not supposed to be in here."  I stepped into the coop and tried to encourage her to leave.  She just sat there and looked at me.  So, I walked back to the house to grab my work gloves figuring she was going to require a more explicit re-lo program. Lorna and Tim were already at the house cooking the prime rib (to go along with the fab, colossal king crab legs Nora purchased directly from some place in Alaska - these things were almost 2' long!) for my b'day dinner, and Lorna was astounded that I was going to pick this animal up and move her out of the coop - not that I had a choice, she could not cohabitate with the hens and ducks.  When I got back out to the coop, she had not moved.  So I stepped inside again and slowly approached her, talking to her while I did so.  She continued to stare at me, but no hissing and baring of teeth.  So I figured what the hell, and reached out to pick her up.  She was, after all, not much larger than the numerous ferrets I've handled over the years, with not much sharper teeth and a seemingly more docile temperament.  She didn't resist at all, or turn to try to bite me.  I carried her back to the house, curled up in my arms.  Lorna met me at the back door and I asked her to grab some sunflower seeds on a plastic lid, which I placed under the stoop along with Miss 'Possum.  She just sat there not moving for a bit, not "playing dead" as they are known for, but not sure she should move either.  However, within 5-10 minutes she was up and eating seeds.

Oddly, I've not seen her out in daylight since Saturday, but saw signs of her tracks in the snow yesterday morning.  I hope she lingers here long enough to put on some size and then wanders off to her next locale before she gets big enough to potentially do some damage to the hens...because then I will have to relocate her back into the woods; a considerably more dangerous location for her from a predator standpoint.