Where the Wild Things Are Part II, or Maggie Finds a Friend

My mom hates it when I take the dog out for a walk late at night, because you never know what you'll encounter. I never would have done it in my old neighborhood in Chicago--heck, I was often hassled during the daytime there. But here, where I encounter junior high kids walking their dogs at 10 o'clock at night, I'm not going to worry about it too much.

So a few nights ago, I put Maggie in the back yard without even bothering to turn the porch light on. There was enough light from the moon, and the street lamp, and the neighbor's security light across the alley to more or less make my way around the yard without tripping over anything. So I let her out and followed behind her. She immediately spotted something underneath the lilacs. With tail wagging, she was dancing around whatever it was, trying to get in for a good sniff. I figured it was a mouse or a rabbit--we are overrun with rabbits in the 'hood, bunnies who are so fearless they sometimes quietly sit and watch us as we walk by within feet of them.

I sighed and went back inside to flip on the light switch, which is through the door and six steps up. When I came back out, Maggie was gone. I called her and called her, but there was no response.

Now, I was a little bit worried. I didn't smell skunk when we came outside, but that didn't mean much, since my sinuses are completely stuffed this week from allergies and I have to practically be on top of something before I can smell it.

It was now deathly quiet. No cars, no wind rustling through the trees, and I couldn't even hear Maggie's tags jingling. There was only one place she could be, behind the garage, where the light from the porch doesn't reach.

So I carefully made my way back there, calling her the whole time, and found her at the far side of the garage, at the gate to the alley, ears perked and staring straight up at this:

The opossum was only a foot or so above her head. It was as still and silent as Maggie was.

"Jeezus, Maggie, get over here," I said. I'm such a city girl. Although I would spot them fairly regularly in the wee hours of the morning in the back alleys of Chicago, my general knowledge of 'possums amounted to "they hang from their tails or something, don't they?" I had certainly never been this close to one.

Thank God, Maggie actually came when I called her, her tail wagging and a big cheesy dog grin on her face. I hustled her back inside and of course got Ted as I grabbed the camera. When we went back out, the 'possum was still there, still as stone. That's apparently what they do when they feel threatened--er--play possum, that is. Thanks to Wikipedia, I later learned this about them:

When threatened or harmed, they will "play possum," mimicking the appearance and smell of a sick or dead animal. The lips are drawn back, teeth are bared, saliva foams around the mouth, and a foul-smelling fluid is secreted from the anal glands. The physiological response is involuntary, rather than a conscious act. Their stiff, curled form can be prodded, turned over, and even carried away. The animal will regain consciousness after a period of minutes or hours and escape. Many injured opossums have been killed by well-meaning people who find a catatonic animal and assume the worst.

The article went on to say that they're nocturnal, solitary, and nomadic, and not really a problem unless cornered. And no, the adults do not hang from their tails, although the wee ones will, briefly, do so. Bummer.

(Of course, now I'm wondering what new visitors Google will bring to my page because I used "anal glands". Um, twice.)

So, because it was playing possum, I actually got to step up within a few feet of it to take its picture. (In the photo above I was crouched down so I could get a picture from Maggie's perspective.)

"Hey beautiful," I said softly. "Let me just snap this and you can go on your merry way."

Ted laughed from behind me. "I doubt they get called beautiful very often."

Probably not. This little guy was drooling and he had snot hanging from his nose. But heck, that's just his nature. And he did have such luxurious-looking fur. I ran around to the alley side to get this picture:

Of course, now more than ever, Mom does not want me taking Maggie out after dark.

Where the Wild Things Are

A few days ago, there were reports of a cougar prowling around the Linden Street train station in Wilmette, roughly 3.5 miles north of The Box House. The general consensus at the time was "yeah, right," because this is very much an urban area. Later, a cougar was shot and killed in Roscoe Village, in Chicago, just a few miles south of us. It was the first one sighted within the city limits since Chicago was founded in 1833, and many people assumed it was the one seen previously in Wilmette. After all, the odds are already huge that a great cat would make its way here. But more than one? Never.

My mind boggles at the thought of a cougar padding its way through my town on gigantic cat feet and into the City unseen. Although, if he followed the train line, I guess it's quite possible. Maybe he passed me silently in the night as I took Maggie out for her last call. What would I have done had I seen it? Probably wet myself. Many years ago, I had unexpectedly run into a black bear while on a canoe trip, and froze in near terror as the boat glided within inches of him on the shore--so close I could smell the musty odor of his fur.

So the assumption in Chicago was that the mountain lion gunned down in Roscoe Village had to be the same creature seen on the North Shore. But maybe it wasn't the same cat. Today, there were reports that another cougar has been spotted up in the Skokie Lagoons, to the north and west of Wilmette.

Who would have believed this could happen? Although there are the occasional rumored sightings of big cats along the Mississippi River or just on the other side of the Wisconsin border, the last confirmed sighting in Illinois of a wild cougar was in Southern Illinois in 1862.

I like that my stable, predictable Midwest surroundings can still surprise me.

(I couldn't post the photo of the dead cougar; it didn't seem right. So I took one from Wikipedia instead.)