VIRGINIA BEACH
When Buckshot, the friendly opossum, heads to his new home on the Eastern Shore shortly, he won't be heading back to the wild but to a new life as an education animal.
Buckshot will become a poster child at events and schools, where he will let folks know what a decent sort he is and how cruel a kid with a BB gun or other weapon can be. He also will be a reminder that it is illegal to raise baby wild animals.
Wildlife rehabilitator Connie Hiebert took the friendly Buckshot in after the opossum was found weak and emaciated near Independence Boulevard and Cromwell Road in January.
"I thought he had been hit by a car," said Hiebert, who brought the animal to Dr. Tony Poutous in Chesapeake, who said it had been shot.
The wounded opossum - only a 7- to 9-month-old youngster - had seven pellets embedded around his head and face, Hiebert said.
Buckshot was obviously shot at close range. A BB was even found inside his mouth.
He couldn't eat any solid food, his wounds were infected and he is on a two-month course of antibiotics.
From the day Hiebert took Buckshot into rehab, the opossum was very friendly and in fact, actually enjoyed human contact. Hiebert thinks someone must have raised him from a baby, which may have been a good-intentioned effort, but which is illegal with local wildlife.
"He either became too much of a problem and they let him go or else he got loose," Hiebert surmised.
But what happened next was certainly not good intentioned.
Buckshot must have wandered into a strange yard and maybe even scared the residents, Hiebert said. But that was no excuse for the poor opossum to become stationary target for someone with a BB gun.
Even though Buckshot is beginning to recover from his wounds, Hiebert knows that the friendly opossum will never make it in the wild again.
That's why he's going to become an education opossum. Hiebert said she would keep the sweet boy herself if she had a cage large enough for him.
It's not that Hiebert doesn't have enough to do with a flying squirrel that is on its way to becoming an education animal, plus several cages of young gray squirrels and flying squirrels needing rehabilitation.
Still, if you find a mammal, young or old, wounded or friendly, contact Hiebert at 589-1819 or email: secondchancewildlife@cox.net or contact another rehabber. Don't take it on yourself.
P.S. More cruelty to wildlife from kids with weapons: Parents, do you know what your children are doing with those BB guns and bows and arrows you gave them as gifts?
Wildlife volunteers from the Virginia Beach Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals captured two Canada geese off Eagle Point Road in Kings Grant recently.
One had been shot three times with a pellet gun and another with a broken wing that had been shot multiple times in the wings and leg.
The geese were shot on the same street where a goose had been shot by an arrow right after Christmas.
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
Ospreys are arriving at their nests. Robert Brown sent a photo of the first one back at a nest at First Landing State Park off 64th Street. And Reese Lukei reports one of the ospreys has returned to the new nesting platform at Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge.
A couple of Great Backyard Bird Count results: The Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center staff participated in the count and aquarium educator Alexis Rabon saw rare thick-billed murres on an aquarium winter wildlife boat trip. This black and white sea bird is a denizen of the far, far north and usually winters on the New England coast.
And Pam Monahan, whose observations and camera bring wonderful stories and photos to Close Encounters, tied at number 20 in the state for the number of species reported - 57!
Flo Womack sent an intriguing photo of deer hidden among the reeds at Windsor Castle in Smithfield. Woody Stephens photographed a pair of wood ducks on Thalia Creek that shows what a beauty the female is. See both Stephens' and Womack's photos in Thursday Beacon's Close Encounters.
Bob Childers sent a photo of a flock of cormorants on the beach near the rock jetty at Willoughby Spit in Norfolk. Childers said he had never seen the cormorants out on the beach there in great numbers before.
Reese Lukei photographed what he estimated to be about 4,000 to 5,000 snow geese behind the Back Bay Post Office off Princess Anne Road. Thousands more arrived to join the flock that built to around 10,000 as time went on. "My guess is they are gathering up to migrate north," he said.
Allen Waters photographed a snow goose on the Maryland side of the Eastern Shore that appears to be honking to its comrades: "Listen up, everybody! It's time to pack up and get ready. We're moving out!"
Dennis Slavinsky in Salem Woods asked how to discourage a crazy robin from attacking its reflection in a window. The robin is probably a macho male defending its territory from that stranger it sees in the reflection! A few other birds, sometimes, even females, will do this too - patio door, moon roof, wherever they can see their image. Usually the bird stops when it pairs up with a mate!! To try to stop the behavior, cover the window from the outside, not the inside. Still the bird may work around the house to find another image to attack!
Camm Boyd in Pembroke Manor got a good photo of the painted bunting that has been visiting her off and on this winter.
Tammy Woodell in Pocahontas Village snapped a photo of a disgruntled great blue heron in the cold, scheming to get a koi meal from Woodell's covered koi pond.
Larry LaPell sent a photo of a male eastern towhee dining on safflower seed at his feeder in Forest Park.
Grace, the eagle equipped as an eaglet with a satellite tracking transmitter in Witchduck last year, is now visiting Mackay Island National Wildlife Refuge. Follow Grace at http://www.ccbbirds.org/news-room/blogs/eagletrak-blog/
Jonathan Snyder photographed a slew of harbor seals stretched out, sunning on the rocks on a Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel island. Snyder was on a Virginia Aquarium boat trip at the time and also saw about 20 species of birds.
Harvey Seargeant in Portsmouth sent what is probably a farewell shot of a pretty little yellow-rumped warbler before it leaves for its nesting grounds farther north.