This is not a very glamorous note and account, but to me it was an interesting observation of a opossum's behavior at a mock set for a trail camera that some may appreciate. It surprised me.

Here is the background on the set-up, using an old "bait station" on my property. The visuals include week-old dried up chicken bones, a deer rib cage and clam shells from last October.

I added a visual comprised of an empty toilet paper roll spray painted black (pegged vertically with a small branch) with a small gob of uncleaned wool poked in the top that was sprinkled with Hawbakers Reddy Red spiked urine - the brownish/orange coloration on the wool insert. Also put a few drops on the ground at the base of the roll.





I believe both of these videos are of the same opossum.

Here the grinner is drawn to the urine scent. Watch carefully to see what follows after the the approach.



A little while later it came back to gnaw on a chicken bone, maybe in hopes the calcium would neutralize the taste of fox pee on its tongue? There couldn't have been much to actually eat left on those bones. The raccoons, crows, starlings and ants had them picked pretty clean from a week earlier.





Jonathan

Good luck on your possum study's, maybe you'll figure them out one day lol.

Jtrapper, While having tenured interest (perhaps almost an anal addiction) in recording any and all animal behaviors with my trail cameras, I do not need any more evidence to record the opossum as such; however, this rendition of evidence was a first for me to observe.

Interesting, I have lost videos (had a computer crash in April) of raccoon, grey fox and red fox doing the same thing with a cotton ball inoculated with either Reddy Red or bobcat urine parked inside of a clam shell.

Note the color stain on the cotton ball in the clam shell with this multiple visual presentation.



I guess what I was thinking about with this post, probably more than anything else with my unquiet mind in gear, was an educational introduction for new and beginning trappers to use their crayons coloring outside of the lines from books or DVD instructions to provoke the value of imagination in the discovery.

That is all. End of the hunt for now on that one.

Jonathan

Jonathan i sure do like your posts, always very intresting.

It is late in the day/night, but I thought I would bop back in on this exercise with an encore.

I reset my stage here with another presentation, after the fact that that opossum ran off with that urine-soaked wool plug. Last night I replaced the missing wool plug in that toilet paper roll with a fresh one of the same caliber - Reddy Red.

This time, however, I baited my "set' with six freshly eaten chicken wing bones - there was a little meat on those for the taste buds of whoever happened by to taste, lick or munch on in that incentive.

There was collateral damage to the toilet paper roll as in evidence here:



On a wider view, if you look closely, you can see the wool scattered around that set in little pieces. Note: There is not a drop of urine stain on any one. The TP roll is at the very central bottom of this photo.



Here is the fun part of this new set. The opossum, who I'll show next, had some competition for the fresh chicken bones from this mangey-looking feral,angora cat. It never went near the wool implant to wreck it as shown.



But, I am positive that Mr/Mrs opossum did - even though I didn't capture that on video. My trail cam was set for one minute intervals between takes, and I missed that action. I doubt if it was the raccoon who frequents this diner.

The TP roll and wool plug are next to the opossum on the left in this take, not totally wrecked yet.



After licking the urine off of the wool, and chewing it to bits for that taste first, the fresh chicken were dessert from what I could tell.

Who else could have done that between the one minute intervals at this set?

Jonathan

Good post Jonathan, you should have the grinner to an XXL in no time, with all your feeding it. LOL Tom

Thought I would bop back with an ink drop here again for T-man consumers who might be interested in following my impulses with the bother to to follow this prowl further.

Here is the extension's exposure of my curiosity on this trek. No drama, but after the influence of my full moon anticipations, as many of you may know, I was hatched under Luna at 1:30 AM, 13 July 1942. Okay, while under her spell, before dark, I was forced to explore this set-up with a different presentation. I set these two options up at 6:15 PM, photographed them, because I was determined to capture more evidence of the pee beaten wool caper and who wrecked that toilet paper roll.

As low as that original toilet paper offer was (easy to get at), I decided to replace it with a longer roll from paper towels.

To really get the potential visitors cranked on the approach, sniff and munch drill, these were in my offers at two different locations -30 yards apart on the periphery of my wild garden.

I inoculated both of these set ups with fresh chicken bones and a shot of Reddy Red.

Here is the view from my old bait station - longer black roll, urine soaked piece of wool on top of it, and an edible portion of remnants on the pile of bones in front of it.



The other presentation at a broken, aged bale of straw - fresh chicken bones, a handful of clam shells, with a dose of Reddy Red dribbled from the top of the bale. I didn't put any on the ground on purpose. I wanted to see what would be most attractive to a critter who happened by for the offerings - chicken, pee or the shells.



I'll download the trail camera images tomorrow morning, if there are any from overnight, to see who may have walked by to check both of these set-ups out.

See ya later on the results of this experiment.

Jonathan

Interesting Jonathan thanks for sharing. Looking forward to more.

I am optimistic about catching somebody on the prowl tonight - feral cats, woodchucks, raccoon, skunk and opossum have been frequent visitors to my "bait station." I set this place up in my yard last fall in an attempt to catch one of the coyotes in my neighborhood on candid camera. That has not happened yet, even though I can hear them howling at night about a half mile away.

Jonathan

Interesting post Johnathan! I love your attention to detail and quirky style 8-). The first teaches everyone a lot and the second is just plain entertaining.

Sean

I won't bore you anymore after today with this experiment. I am off to play in my other sandboxes with my cameras.

Anyway, here are the overnight results. There was little action at the paper towel roll set - only a feral cat visitation and not one bone missing. It stayed clear of the black scented "post", but was obviously interested in the urine on the ground in front of it. It never touched the fresh chicken bones.



There was a different story over at the straw bale set. Note how feral Tabby's approach was very cautious for some reason. He was the second critter on that scene last night, and only showed up once. A raccoon came by first.



I suspect this vagrant raccoon in the vicinity kept Tabby at bay. Here is a sequence from that bale zone, showing erratic performances from that raccoon. Every chicken bone was gone from that pile when I retrieved the trail camera around 7:00AM this morning.








Jonathan