In late autumn 2024, we had only light snow. The thin coverings of snow each revealed a procession of night visitors the next morning in tracks.  We got especially excited by one set of tracks. Our possum’s presence! It is our favorite opossum. We hadn’t seen him (or her) for several months and feared that the animal may have been hit by a car or suffered some other death.

The sparse snow cover made excellent tracking conditions. We were delighted to follow our possum’s tracks as they wandered past our bird feeder to our compost bin.

Opossum tracks are distinctive. The animal’s toes are almost semicircular with widely spaced toes. Raccoon toes, in contrast, are more like human toes and are arranged almost in parallel.

The possum wasn’t alone. We also discovered that a coyote had passed through our yard, deer had lingered a while and checked out the bird feeder, and a house cat visited, probably seeking a tasty mouse for dinner. We found mouse tracks but no evidence that one of these tiny rodents became the cat’s dinner. Sometimes a fox trots by.

Although we have written about tracking before, we find that tracking is fascinating and a good way to enjoy winter outdoors. A light snow creates perfect conditions. The Old Farmer’s Almanac posts a useful guide on how to identify animal tracks. We are happy to re-discover our possum’s presence.