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Awww, isn't he cute??? What a sweet little face.
Awhile back, I wrote about the 9 surprises we found in our basement. You can read about it here. 8 of them lived. These little guys were so small back in April- about 5 to 6 inches long (nose to rump). They have grown and are now about 10 inches and yesterday we released them into the woods. When we found them they would all fit in a third of the little house that Mr. Fanatic made for them back in April. As you can see they fill up their entire house now...
and are now large enough to live in the wild on their own and it was time for them to have a new home.
So, we all went out to say goodbye to our furry little marsupials. We picked each one up & took their picture ... but don't ask me who's who!
Look at those feet trying to grasp for anything! This one is Lulu who turned out to be a BOY! Lulu was very sweet and would never try to nip at us and was very adventurous and not afraid to come out of the little house when we were feeding them.
Here I am holding one of the more aggressive possums. The aggressive ones would nip at you if you put your hand close to them. But, we always wore gloves, so it didn't hurt when they did. We didn't discourage the aggressiveness because it would help them in the wild.
We placed each one into a plastic container & carried them far into the woods near a little tributary of the creek behind our house. Two of our cats started to follow us so they were locked up until we returned.
We brought the possum's little house and set it in the woods in case they needed a safe place to sleep. The container was turned over so they could get out. At first they were all very timid, but of course as one went out (I think it was Lulu), the rest followed.
They went to their little house for safety.
But Lulu had other plans and went off into the woods toward the creek. :' (
This little guy climbed up a twig of a tree (behind the larger tree in the foreground) about 15 ft high. He climbed up to the top and it started to sway, so he backed down a little. Then he peered down on us from atop his perch.
After we released them it was difficult to let them go off into the woods, but we resisted the urge to pick them up one more time. We spread out some food for them on the forest floor before we left. We hope they will be alright until they get a little bigger. I am sure that we will go out to the place we set them free to drop off some more food. We will probably do this for a couple of days.
I'm glad we had the opportunity to take care of the little opossums. They are interesting little creatures.
Thanks for stopping by,
Pam
