In the fall of my sophomore year in high school, my biology teacher gave the class a two-week assignment to observe and write a detailed report about the wildlife we observed in our respective backyards.
Our teacher divided the class into three groups: mammals, birds, and insects.
I was happy to be placed in the mammals group because I would have found it difficult to identify most birds and insects without the help of a guide book, but I could identify all of the local fauna.
During the two-week study, carried out both in daytime and at night, I was able to observe rabbits, squirrels, a raccoon, and an opossum.
The rabbits I saw were Eastern Cottontails. They were gray-brown in color with a short, rounded white tail. I noticed their eyes were large, and their rear feet were long and appeared to be quite strong. I estimated their length to be 18 inches. I watched them feed on tree bark and saw that they stayed under brushy cover much of the time, but if they heard a loud noise, they would either remain motionless or run.
My grandmother fed squirrels, so it wasn’t difficult for me to observe them as they chomped away on nuts, but I wanted to see their other actions as well. I watched as two squirrels performed a high wire act on our telephone line then chased each other up and down an oak tree and scurried off into a neighbor’s yard.
I estimated the squirrels’ length to be 16-20 inches long, including the bushy tail. As I observed the squirrels more frequently, I realized they were rather solitary mammals, searching the ground for nuts and berries. When they found these edibles, they hid them in the crotch of the oak tree so they would have a stash of food in the winter.
One night I observed a raccoon as it tried to tip over one of our garbage cans. When I turned my flashlight on, the raccoon hissed at me, causing me to retreat a few feet. Fortunately, it did not attack me. I saw that this stocky mammal was about 3 feet long with sharp claws, a masked face, and a bushy coat that gave it a gray-black color.
The opossum I observed in early daylight was the ugliest animal I had ever seen. It was a gray, stocky beast with short legs, a pointed snout, a very long tail, a white face, and dark, pointed ears. I had heard that these mammals play dead when they are startled, so I threw a stick to its right side, and the opossum rolled its 3½-foot body over on its side and remained motionless.
I went inside the porch to watch the opossum through a window, and when it realized the “danger” had passed, it rolled back on its feet and left the yard.
My life as a mammalogist ended when I completed the assignment. I then resumed my lifelong attitude toward animals: I don’t bother them, and, thus far, they have not bothered me.