Tuesday Evening, November 14

We have an exterior camera – mostly to watch animals and hear the birds – that alerted me to the fact that something was rustling through the leaves on the patio steps.

I looked up at the monitor and saw two opossums walking across the patio. One larger than the other, so I expect it may be a mother and a teenager. The mother went to the ground feeder and the younger one climbed the dogwood tree.

I didn’t mean to scare her away, because opossums eat my junk birdseed.

Whenever I think birdseed in other feeders has gotten too old, I put it in this feeder – for the animals that forage on junk food – and opossums are best at that. They eat the shells of black oil sunflower seeds and will even eat moldy birdseed.

Our daughter Deb said they eat ticks, so I checked it out on Google – and they do eat lots of them.

I think we will keep them in our yard.

I went to the other door to photograph the younger one. I expect it was headed for suet that was hanging in the tree. I don’t often see them this close and was again surprised by its pink nose.

They must have come back during the night, because the “junk” feeder was empty in the morning.