Day Ends With Gas Attack

This opossum ("Marsi") is very much alive and asleep.  She is not a true hibernator, but will sleep for weeks in cold spells like we've had.  The first possum I've seen this winter on our front deck was on Feb. 19.  This photo was taken during the Ohio Wildlife History Family Adventure Day at Kenyon College.  The Gund Gallery and Brown Family Environmental Center at Kenyon sponsored the day, along with Ohio Nature Education (ONE) and the Public Library of Knox County and Mount Vernon.   The bear skin was donated to ONE.   Technically, the bear isn't a true hibernator either--but they do stay in their dens a lot longer than opossums, skunks, and raccoons.   The groundhog, on the other hand, is a true hibernator.  (Photo by Don Comis)

 
My day ended with skunk "gas" seeping into our living room as I read old Reader's Digest stories to my mother-in-law.  My wife smelled the gas seeping into our basement as well.

I don't know what scared it--maybe one of my cats peeked out the glass doors at it?  Or maybe it scuffled with one of two other nocturnal visitors to our bird feeders in the past four days--first, an opossum and second, a raccoon.  I finally checked and saw that none of our three "guests" are true hibernators--they just sleep long spells, even weeks, in cold winter weather.  I can see why I haven't seen or smelled much of them this winter.

I don't know if it was the cold or the wind or first dibs on attracting a mate this spring, but today I finally identified the bird I first saw in my "bluebird" birdhouse on February 19 as a male house sparrow.  House sparrows took over both of my bluebird houses last year, but I'm not sure if any babies were produced.

Otherwise my bird observations were at a low today--I didn't see any birds at my feeders when I was counting them at breakfast time.  But, when I took a nice spring-like walk/run with our dog, Friendly, I heard a hawk calling and saw it soaring in the sky near our house.  And I heard a lot of bird songs as we moved on.