The Urban Pantheist

Tracking quiz! What critter left this five-fingered print in the snow?




It was an opossum! I'm glad it left that paw print, because I would have had a hard time identifying this collection of tracks otherwise.

A coworker found what she took to be a den in a pile of broken concrete blocks. We were thinking about foxes, and she wondered if this den might be where a fox was hiding during the day. I got real close, saw what looked like a furry paw inside, and took a flash picture:


That mystery solved, I headed back out to the public area, and found this pair hanging around by the play structure.

This week Boston is being treated to a little thaw. It's supposed to reach into the fifties today, and considering that 30 feels like a heat wave, I expect to see many people in shorts and t-shirts this afternoon. Wise and cynical New Englanders know that the following week, or maybe the week after that, the temperature WILL plummet again, and we WILL have another foot of snow dumped on up before April, but the respite is nice.

Yesterday, in my official capacity at work skulking around the edges of buildings as I do, I encountered an opossum. These marsupials, having worked their way up from South America only a couple million years ago, are ill-equipped for New England winters. Their hairless tails and ears are frequently frostbitten, and you can tell an older individual (one that has survived at least one winter, and the oldest will only survive about three) by its truncated extremities. If it weren't for their ludicrous litter size and relatively young sexual maturity, they wouldn't make it here. Their appetite for the kind of decomposing junk that humans leave behind helps.

Last night, exhausted from playing with Charlie over in the Riverway, I flumped onto my back in the snow. Lying there catching my breath, I watched a bat fly around for a while. I can't imagine that there are many insects up there, and it was only about 33 degrees. I worried that this was one of those sick bats we've been reading about, that starts to starve in hibernation and wakes up in desperation when it gets a little warmer. Then while walking the dogs this morning, Alexis saw a bat flying down the road toward Brookline Village. Good luck, little fledermausen.

Alexis and I would like to do a project together, combining her photographs with my writing. We haven't come up with an idea yet, so I thought I'd throw it out to you guys and see if you could brainstorm up something. It doesn't have to be about natural history, or dogs, but it should be about something we both are interested in. If you don't know Alexis or her work, you really should take a look at cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com. What do you think? Insane ideas will not be mocked (unless they are imminently mockable) but they will not be entertained either (unless they are entertaining).

Rest in Peace. Opossum 02, 2002-2005