Making your bed is a simple way to start your day off on the right foot.

~Martha Stewart

Ever since my friend Jerry posted some videos about the ‘possums in his back woods, I have been fascinated by the goings-on of our local marsupials. Because of Jerry’s fascinating footage of his critters, I bought a trail camera, then another, and…I now have seven of them scattered about in the woods hoping to capture anything interesting that my wild neighbors might be doing. But, I must admit, the neighborhood opossums are high on my list of subjects to spy on. We seem to have quite a good population, in spite of the coyotes and bobcats that occasionally show up on cameras. When I discovered a well-worn trail last year at the root ball of a large hickory that had blown over in a storm, I set up cameras to see who was passing by. It turned out to be a lot of critters use the trail, from raccoons to squirrels, but the resident mammals were a group of Virginia Opossums. And I finally got some brief footage of a momma ‘possum with a joey on her back and some young opossums near the den back in May.

I had hoped to get a lot more footage of the young opossums around the den, but they disappeared after only a few days and the adults seemed to have left the den about that same time, although one did occasionally walk by or stop to sniff the area. I decided to leave one of the cameras focused on the den (which is in a hole in the root ball of the downed tree). And it has paid off as the den seems to be active again. A little over a week ago, an adult opossum started some home renovations by gathering leaves to make up a new bed. The process seems a lot less complicated than our recent home remodel efforts – just grab a mouthful of leaves and pass them under your belly to your tail, then repeat. Finally, when you have enough, carry them into the house and make your bed! No plans, no budgets, no contractors, no inspections.

Here are a few clips of the Virginia Opossum gathering leaves for a sprucing up of the old homestead.

–An opossum gathers leaves near the den by grabbing them in its mouth and passing them under its belly to its prehensile tail.

–In slow motion you can see how the opossum uses its feet to pass the leaves to its tail

–When the tail has enough leaves, you just waddle into the den and arrange your new bedroom

The camera captured the opossum repeating this procedure four times. Apparently, that’s enough for a nice new Possumpedic mattress.

One thing that troubled me back in May was the sudden disappearance of the young joeys. I figured they had fallen prey to one of the many predators that roam our woods. But this last week, the cameras caught a young opossum going into that same den twice, both very quick clips. It seems more than one opossum can use the same hole, or at least visit for a spell. I also documented a couple of young opossums crossing a log a few hundred feet from the old den site. Below is a clip showing two Virginia Opossums crossing the same log – note the size comparison between a young opossum and an adult.

–A young opossum crossing (moving right to left) compared to an adult (moving left to right) on the same log. I don’t know for sure if this is one of the joeys from the May den footage, but the size is about right for that time frame.

Looking forward to seeing what the Chatham ‘Possum Network has to offer in the future. Thanks, Jerry, for the inspiration.