Whose Hungry?

Our Kousa Dogwood has provided a lot of fruit  . .

            . . . to an array of animals this fall that luckily I spotted over the last few weeks. 

Unfortunately,  I didn't catch any of them in the act with a photo

so you will have to use your imagination - 

here is the tree:

Following a storm,  

I saw two young raccoons scampering up and around it. 

Several deer, a week later 

and then an opossum

one late night, 

whose shiny eyes I caught in the headlight beams. 

Whose Tracks are These?

Last week we had a warmer day in the uppers 40's, so I trudged through the snow to see how the bees were doing. The dead bees, that had been cleaned from the hives, were gone! I then noticed some tracks.

I followed them down to the creek and to an old tree, but

they went around the tree, over the creek and into the woods.

I walked back and noticed that the tracks were all around the hive and then they meandered around and finally up to the driveway.

The tracks belonged to an opossum. They are North American's only marsupial and can bare up to 14 babies with 9 only usually surviving. The babies stay in the pouch for about 10 weeks then climb to the mother's back. Opossums have a prehensile tail and play dead when they feel threatened. I wonder if he'll be back for another winter snack next time the bees clean house.