December 15th
Today is the 16th I know. There won’t be another blog today for reasons I won’t go into and it passed my mind to write one yesterday when I should have done. Anyway, I was struggling to get to sleep last night so I went on the internet to help clear my mind. As some of you may know I occasionally watch wildlife webcams, and I have featured a couple of species which I have seen on said webcams. I was watching one called ‘Critter Cam’ which, as you may gather from the name, is American. It was dark there so I wasn’t expecting to see anything, but lo and behold there was indeed a critter in front of the cam. One most of my American readers will be instantly familiar with, but one which my UK readers would think is Australian.
Virginia Opossum Didelphis virginiana (Kerr, 1792)
Americans refer to these as just possums (correct me if I’m wrong though!) and are a familiar urban creature who are opportunistic scavengers. I think the closest equivalent in the UK in terms of behaviour is maybe the fox. But, possums are marsupials and are the size of domestic cats and look nothing like foxes. In fact they don’t look like anything we have in Europe. I don’t know too much about them other than what I have just written. They look pretty hideous in my opinion, but I’m sure they may be quite endearing if I’m being kind, again, let me know your opinions on possums to enlighten me!
Advent species so far:
- 1st: Goosander Mergus merganser
- 2nd: December Moth Poecilocampa populi
- 3rd: Horse Chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum
- 4th Black-headed Gull Chroicocephalus ridibundus
- 5th Cape Sparrow Passer melanurus
- 6th Loricera pilicornis
- 7th Great Tit Parus major
- 8th Tipula paludosa
- 9th Redwing Turdus iliacus
- 10th Bank Vole Myodes glareolus
- 11th Tawny Owl Strix aluco
- 12th Sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus
- 13th Kingfisher Alcedo atthis
- 14th Nebria brevicollis
- 15th Virginia Opossum Didelphis virginiana
A Species a Day 