Opossum Vs. Skunk

A skunk is not something most creatures would want to mess with.  It's an experience that could lead to scratches, bites, and of course, a smell like no other.

There's only one clear picture of the ordeal, but it shows the real attitude of these two animals.  This is one brave opossum, folks.

The skunk seemed to be the winner and continued eating for 34 minutes after this.

A Real Stinker

Let's all take a minute to appreciate the skunks of Northern Virginia.

One of my biggest surprises so far in my experiences of camera-trapping has actually been a lack of skunks.  This is only my third event of getting a skunk on camera in all of northern Virginia, ever.

I know there are many of them around because I see them walking in the daytime, see them dead on the road, smell them in the air frequently, and see them at least once a week in my backyard in the summer,

So why are skunks so camera shy?   Well,  I don't really know.  I never thought it would be this hard to get a skunk on camera in the woods at night.

Opossum Gets A Bite While Foxes Fight

Excitement continues at "The Downed Buck".  Foxes always seem to provide some interesting fighting photos at these carcasses.  This fight quickly turned into something else though as you will see in the following images.

Here we go.  Foxes meet once again at a dead deer carcass.  I blew the picture up so you could
more easily see the opossum (located in the middle-left of the picture) that is watching the action.

What could be going on here?

Did you expect this "fight" to end like this?  I didn't.

After a little canid copulation, it's back to some roughness.

All that opossum (Didelphis virginiana) wanted was some dinner, but he got a view that most humans would have to do a quick Google search for.

In previous posts, I detailed fox meetings at carcasses.  I wonder now if these foxes were actually mating with each other as well and that my cameras just didn't catch it.  It amazes me how much action and behavior   is possible to capture on night vision camera traps, but what is more amazing is how much we STILL do not see even with cameras taking multiple pictures with each trigger.  It's fun speculating these "between triggers" actions of animals.

I (as well as you might be) am getting a little tired of so many fox pictures.  I've gone through a few thousand of them in the past week alone and want something even more exciting.  I got a little excited though with a new camera-trapped species for me today.  

Skunk at my set for birds and squirrels in a very productive cam-trap site.

Mephitis mephitis came by one of my camera trap sets recently.  That's right, your very own, Virginia native, Striped skunk.  Striped skunks as you may or may not know are actually not quite yet in mating season.  They'll start in about a month or so and will start having their offspring around mid-May in northern Virginia.  So no, I do not have any skunk mating pictures to share just yet, but getting a new species today was just fine with me.