Young opossum at Howell Nature Center
My site has been ‘playing ‘possum’ since last Thursday and was resuscitated yesterday. Mouth hanging open, tongue hanging out, no breathing signs…the works…not a fun experience. But after hours on phone support and much back and forth on support tickets, things are getting back to normal. Sorry if anyone tried to email me at my grafphoto.com email addresses, because that was dead also.
How fitting that I recently photographed this 9 month old opossum at a wildlife rehabilitation center near me. They put on photo sessions a few times a year to raise money for the center. This little young opossum was quite content with not playing dead though. She loved exploring around this log and I love the way her ears are propped out.
Very much unlike the wild ones that our malamute Willow has encountered in our yard. She only caught one once for a second before I was running after her to “drop it.” They are pretty good at playing dead.
The one she caught didn’t have any harm to it that I could tell, but had his mouth hanging open, tongue out, bearing some pretty sharp teeth. I was hovering over him to just catch the slightest breath so I could say “ah ha! gotcha!” 🙂 I took our dog inside and left him alone and within 10 minutes he wandered off.
So the same type of thing sort of happened to my site over the past few days. A dog got a hold of the server it is on, gave it some really good shakes, and knocked it out cold. Fortunately it is back up, and a bit more wary of the dangers that lurk out there.
Beautiful shot of the possum, Mark! The log and background make a great setting. How interesting that you were able to see one play dead for real. That’s one of those things that you always learn about as a kid, but I’ve never had the pleasure of witnessing it.
What a gorgeous portrait. The Opossum is adorable. Glad you’re site is all working again. Sooooo frustrating when that happens >:( grrr
Hello Mark, I’ve been traveling for a while without my computer. So nice to visit your site and see this adorable possum shot!
Sharon
This post would have been highly appropriate for a Halloween. It sent shivers up my spine. Congratulations on the come back. It must be a relief to breathe deeply once more. You were missed and it is great having you back. Here I had these mental pictures of you on some exotic vacation having a wonderful time. If only, right?
I will join the chorus singing praises for this photograph. This is by far the best portrait I have seen of an opossum. You certainly were on your game the day you took this one.
Ha! I only wish Anita on the exotic vacation. The most exotic it got was descending into the inner workings of servers and IP addresses of my site. Not a place for the timid. 🙂 I am glad you like the photo.
Wow, what are the chances of having this image after such an experience. The shot is great, I see lots of opossums in my neck of the woods as well, don’t think I have ever seen one look so good.
If there is any advice you might have from your experiences I’m sure most of us would be curious to know.
Thanks Brad. Well, I have the Bad Behavior plugin running on my blog now, that is thwarting a lot of the unwanted hits. Plus I am keeping an eye on IP’s visiting over the past few days since I have been back up and trying to block them. I didn’t realize it was so easy to take a site down if there is a focused effort in doing it.
Wow! A stunning image. Glad your back up and running.
Thanks guys.
omg, this is such a lovely image, the greens suits this little possum gorgeously well. I’m glad your site turned over from its back and started to run again.
That’s a beautiful portrait, Mark. I’m glad that your site survived and is back amount the living: Notes From The Woods – Phoenix Edition! 🙂
Possums are lovely critters. We had one living in our garage one winter and he kept control over the field mice that got in there. He pretty much kept to himself and didn’t bother anyone and in the Spring, he wandered off. This is a real nice portrait, one of the best I’ve seen.
Mark, glad to hear things are getting back to normal. So how many lives do ‘possums’ or perhaps this site have. Hopefully, like cats they have at least nine.
Not sure Earl, I have certainly used a few of them up! 🙂