A few weeks ago I went to Ontario to assist with a program called the Art of Mentoring.  It's a big gathering of naturalists, mentors and people curious about nature connection.   We come together once a year for a week of learning about nature and methods for connecting people outside as a community.

The tenting area was a fairly long distance from where we would meet up in the morning.  In order to get to and from the tent meadow you had to either take a dirt road that went along side a horse paddock or walk along the trail that went parallel to the road on the other side of the horse paddock. 

On the first night I was there I decided to take the trail instead of the road to get back to my tent.  It was already dark and I walked swiftly but quietly along the trail, straining my ears to listen to all the subtle sounds in the bushes.  The cool air was wonderful and a beautiful starry sky stretched out overhead. 

This area had a lot of deer, raccoons & skunks.  I wasn't worried about the deer and raccoons but I certainly wasn't interested in upsetting any skunks. 
Attempting to detect skunks when walking along a dark trail at night definitely peaks your senses & gives you good incentive to pay close attention to your surroundings.

As I approached the horse pasture I heard a sound coming from an old shed.  I stopped & listened for a little while.  It sounded like some sort of animal.  Maybe a weasel?  Or a raccoon? I couldn't be sure but I was tired from the day of travel so I kept going and had a great sleep under the stars.

The next morning I woke up early and started heading back along the trail.  The birds had already woken up and were making various dawn songs & feeding calls.

As I was walking alongside the horse paddock I started hearing song sparrows alarming maybe 100 yards up the trail.  It sounded like they were alarming at some sort of ground predator.

As I scanned up the trail I realized that the alarms were coming from very close to that old shed I had passed the night previously.  the birds were perched almost exactly where I had heard the noise from that animal.  This was my chance to figure out what was going on.

As I approached the shed I slowed down & started watching for any sort of movement in the bushes.  I caught a glimpse of one of the sparrows & noticed that it was looking to the other side of the trail.  That's when I noticed shaking & movement of a young tree out past a big patch of goldenrod that bordered the trail.  My mystery animal was right on the other side of that goldenrod.

I started stalking into the bushes being careful not to make too much noise. 

As I got in to the center of the bushes I saw movement from an animal but it was still too hidden to tell what it was.  I was watching for when it would come into view and then suddenly two juvenile raccoons rolled right out into an opening where I could see them perfectly!

They seemed to be play fighting because they were grabbing on to each other and rolling around on the ground.  I watched them for a couple minutes as they did this and heard some of their whimpering calls to each other. 

I wasn't sure if there were more around and I wondered if their mother might be nearby but I didn't see her.

After a few minutes I slowly stalked back out of the goldenrod so I wouldn't disturb them and headed off on the trail with much gratitude for the sparrows that helped me solve another mystery.

Our chickens had quite the life living in the foothills of the cascade mountains where cougars, coyotes & coopers hawks frequent the land.  We had already learned a tough lesson about the fragility of chickens from the bobcat.  But even normally nonthreatening creatures can wreak havoc under the right circumstances. 

It was late midwinter and snow was on the ground in enough concentration that it created excellent and somewhat rare snow tracking conditions.  I had spent the day following the trails of coyotes & bobcats & deer trying to identify the tiny tracks & patterns of mice, shrews & weasels.  I was surprised to discover that almost everywhere I went I kept coming across trails of the Virginia Opossum.  I had no idea there were so many of them in the area.  It's amazing how snow can show us formerly unseen worlds with new eyes. 

As I was heading home I noticed the trail of a particular individual possum moving parallel to the road I was walking on.  It was a private road more like a shared driveway that only saw a few cars every day so the snow was still present and you could make out the tracks of the possum as they crossed over and headed into the bushes. 

A little bit further along I saw the trail again as the road took a turn west and intersected with the trajectory of the possum.  When I arrived home I noticed the trail a third time coming out of the bushes and heading straight through our property. 

The next day when I went out to my sit spot I noticed there were possum tracks all over the field.  They seemed to be everywhere and I wasn't sure if there had just always been a possum around our house or if there was something special going on in their lives that was causing them to be so present. 

I mentioned all the possum tracks to one of my housemates and he said "Oh yeah, I've been seeing a possum in our garage." He had seen it in there multiple times over the past few days.  When I looked at all the possum trails in the area I realized that they all pointed back to our house.  All the trails were pointing to where it was making it's home at present... Our garage. 

Possums are apparently semi-nomadic & will stay in one place for a few weeks before moving on to fresh grounds.  It had been in there for a while so we decided to leave it for a bit longer to see if the possum would move out of it's own accord. 

Then one night long after the sun had gone down, everything was quiet outside & we were sitting with a few friends in our living room when we suddenly heard a noise of utter horror coming from the chicken coop.  It was the ducks & they were absolutely freaking out about something.  Thinking it had to be the bobcat again... a couple of us ran out the back door.  We got out just in time to see the tail of one of our ducks running blindly out into the night.

As we approached the coop who should we see waddling away from the crime scene but our resident possum.  It turned & showed it's bright blue eye glow & then crawled under our fence to disappear into the night.  It must have found some way to open the coop door and spook the ducks. It had vacated our garage and that was the last we saw of the possum.

We followed the duck tracks through the snow in an attempt to recover our friend but lost the trail when it got down to the creak.  It was so freaked out about the possum that it ran away into the night and never came back. 

What's the takeaway lesson from this story?

Never trust a possum.