29/09/07: Queek stops by! He has stayed in one of our possum hotels several times recently. Phases of leaving the box for the evening: head out, body, a bit more, and outside the box. We don't yet have any clear photos, but we have been studying his markings. It has been almost a year since we've seen him - but it does seem possible that Queek would now look like this current possum. It is possum mating season, and during this time we have noticed that possums tend to move around more, shake up the usual routine, travel to different places.

A while back a large female possum made an appearance, and slept for a couple of nights in a nestbox. We wondered if she would try to take over Cocoa's territory. She was an older possum with a lot of personality - we named her Jezebel. Her pouch was distended and it was likely a baby of hers had just become independent.

The first night, Jezebel stayed in a particular spot for a very long time at the back of the house. Later on, I heard some crashing noises, and found Jezebel clinging to the screen door, and Kwila clinging to the corner of the house above the balcony handrail, looking panicked. I was worried for Kwila, and am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I pelted Jezebel with rotten fruit and managed to throw about half a litre of water on her to try to scare her off.

The next night, Blackbeard stayed for a very long time in a spot very near where Jezebel had been, as if he was standing guard. I have not seen Jezebel since. It could be that she never meant to stick around, or maybe she was searching for a territory for her baby. Possibly Jezebel and Kwila worked something out between themselves.

Kwila is becoming braver, more frequently venturing close to us. (Letting herself be seen, and taking small bits of food.) She has very long, silky fur, and appears quite healthy. Here are more (very cute) Kwila photos: tongue out, looking more grown up, peeking between branches, up close, one more.

Pumpkin and Google have each only put in one appearance (separately) in the last couple of weeks, but they both looked well.

10/10/07: Queek occasionally comes to the house for food. (Compare new photo with this older one.) The strawberry in the photo on the right is misleading, because he only nibbled a small bit before deciding to deliberately drop the rest of it. This is consistent with the behaviour of the other brushtails we've had experience with, except Kwila. Strawberries are one of Kwila's favourite foods.

A sillier photo of Queek can be found here.

We are now trying to deal with Blackbeard's mouth infection, which may be a deep skin bacterial infection. For a while, we thought it was going to get better on its own, but it has been a long time (more than two months), and in examining photos we can see that it has been getting worse over time: 1 2 3 4. (Bear in mind that it looks nastier in photos than it does in person, and that possum heads are pretty small.) We are going to apply Betadine to the problem area (the first effort tonight wasn't entirely successful, but I managed to get some on him), but it could be that Blackbeard needs antibiotics.

We have found out that this type of infection is more likely to affect young possums or older possums, or those experiencing stress, (often stress related to displacement or mating). We first noticed Blackbeard's mouth condition at around the time trees had been chopped down across the street. At that time Blackbeard was also occasionally using one of our nestboxes to sleep in, when in the past he hadn't.

We have been told that we can't have a prescription for possum-friendly antibiotics without bringing Blackbeard in to a vet (GK brought photos, but was told that wasn't enough), but if this problem is a stress-related issue, it hardly seems like a good idea to further stress a wild animal in such a way. We are trying to work out what to do about this.

Blackbeard still appears alert, athletic and energetic. He recently chased Queek all around the property and onto the roof, and on another occasion we observed him on top of the nestbox Queek had been sleeping in, rubbing it with his scent. (Both of them have very minor pluckings.) We are not completely sure, but it often looks to us that Blackbeard is protective of Kwila, and that sometimes when he is looking out over the garden, it is partly related to this protectiveness.

Kwila is a regular visitor.

14/10/07: Last night, Pumpkin stopped by for a brief visit. Kwila was here at the same time. They didn't have any problems with each other.

Later in the evening, GK baked a fresh batch of gingerbread, and Blackbeard and Kwila were both attracted by the aroma. For a while they were both on the handrail.

GK managed to coax Blackbeard onto a scale in the house. It was difficult to get Blackbeard to stand still, and at times his tail was off the scale. Blackbeard probably weighs somewhere from 1.9 kg to 2.4 kg. In some recent photos he has looked plump (because of the angle of the photos, and how possum skin/fur bunches up in certain positions) but walking around in the house he looked thin. Blackbeard is a long possum, a tall possum. If he has ringworm, it could go away on its own, although it will take a long time. He probably has a staph or deep skin bacterial infection, although it is possible that he also has ringworm. The antibiotic we are hoping to acquire is called Clavulox. It is a good time at present to give Blackbeard antibiotics as he is visiting frequently - most nights lately he is putting in at least a brief appearance. I will update the situation regarding his mouth infection when I know more.

In the early hours of the morning, Queek also stopped by for a bit of freshly baked gingerbread, and found it very tasty. Kwila showed up again. Queek went out onto the branch Kwila was on, and Kwila hissed ferociously at him. He retreated down the tree, the way chatised males do. Kwila looks puny beside Queek (and Blackbeard).

We do not know for sure if he is Queek, but the possum who has been hanging around lately does remind us of Queek. I suppose it is natural to want to think that the cute little baby possums we have had contact with have managed to find places for themselves, have grown into healthy adulthood, and that they would remember this place. The young Queek had a bit of white fur at the tip of his tail - the current possum does have a bit of white fur at the tip of his tail, but not a lot. Young possums go through a phase where their fur is long and silky. Also, we have noticed that sometimes grown possums seem to be missing a little bit of fur at the tip of their tails. It is difficult, because possums can look so different from one photo to the next, but the current possum does have many similar markings as the young Queek. Possums change a lot as they reach maturity.

Leopold might actually have been Kulfi, but we didn't have a chance to see him up close before he went off somewhere again.

Queek was recently in the house. (Compare with this photo of a young Queek.) He turned out to be afraid of the wool rug. Here is a (very large) photo of Queek on the balcony that shows a bit of white fur at the tip of his tail.

Later: Kwila is definitely becoming dominant. Tonight she chased Blackbeard away several times.

20/10/07: We have the Clavulox!

02/11/07: During the first week, Blackbeard visited 5 times. The antibiotics were absorbed into pieces of gingerbread. We think that Blackbeard ate all of it without dropping any. Blackbeard has not been by for several days now. We don't know to what extent the antibiotics are working. When he returns, we are going to continue to give him antibiotics.

Not long ago, we witnessed some of Blackbeard's efforts to try to chase Queek off. One morning when Queek was attempting to climb into a nestbox, Blackbeard harassed him. When Queek attempted to leave the box for the night, Blackbeard was already there waiting for him. There was much squealing and shrieking, and Queek was trapped in the box until Blackbeard decided to come to the house for food (and that night's dose of antibiotics.)

Here are new photos of Kwila: 1 2, and photos of Queek stretching in a tree and Queek stretching again/climbing onto the balcony (the handrail looks like it needs wiping down).

06/11/07: Pumpkin visited last night. Her pouch is a bit puffy (which may mean she has a new pair of babies.)

Pumpkin allowed GK to pet her. She is the first ringtail we have had contact with to permit this.

08/11/07: Queek has a bad eye injury. Yesterday in the nestbox he occasionally shrieked in pain or made a little hissing noise. We couldn't see what the problem was because he was curled up in a ball. When he came out of the box for the night, (warning: unpleasant photos) we saw: 1 2 3 4.

We have consulted a vet, but the extent of his injury cannot be determined from photos. He could lose sight in that eye, but the benefits of taking him in to a vet do not seem to outweigh the risks, and there would still be no guarantee he would keep his sight. Weighing the options, antibiotics are the best choice for Queek.

All of the recent problems and injuries could be related to the clearing of trees across the street and in other areas nearby, resulting in possums fighting each other for territory, and stress for all.

We have not seen Blackbeard for almost two weeks, and have not seen Kwila for several days or a week. We have on two occasions spotted a new female prowling around - a smaller and more nervous possum than Jezebel.

Pumpkin seems fine. We have some new photos: sabertooth Pumpkin, mouth open, biting fingernails, another cute shot, looking out over the garden.

09/11/07: Queek visited last night. His injured eye has opened up. Here's how it looks directly from the front.

Queek accepted his first dose of Clavulox easily (the Clavulox was absorbed into a piece of gingerbread.) He spent a lot of time hanging around the house, and even came inside for a while to look around. We fed him more than usual so that he wouldn't have to travel far (expend too much of his energy, take extra risks) to forage.

GK talked to someone at Australia Zoo who said that if we captured Queek and brought him in, and if in spite of treatment Queek lost his sight in the one eye, he would be euthanized - they would not consider releasing him.

With Cocoa, the situation seemed pretty clearcut. However, we are reluctant to take the chance that we will not have a choice as to whether Queek is euthanized or not. If Queek loses his sight in one eye, we would like to at least give him a chance to live with a disability, see if he can learn to adapt, compensate.

The antibiotics are a good idea, and may have a better chance to work effectively if Queek doesn't have to deal with the stress of captivity.

I think the sad reality is that wildlife officials deal continually with cases in which native animals are badly injured, and it seems the kindest, most practical or realistic thing to do is put them down. However, our situation here is unusual. We may be in a position to offer help to some of these animals that not everyone can offer. We would at least like to try.

17/11/07: Since the last photos, Queek's eye has gone from this (here's another angle), to having a bluish appearance (the angle of the photo makes him look very silly), almost as if he is wearing a coloured contact lens. Queek has accepted oral antibiotics easily (and regularly - once per day), but it has been very difficult to get him to sit still enough or visit frequently enough for the antibiotic eye cream to be of much benefit (it is best applied several times per day).

A possum carer we have ongoing contact with and a vet who prescribed (and actually sent) antibiotics (strawberry-flavoured Ceclor) and eye cream (Tricin) both said that it is possible for brushtails to adjust to the loss of an eye/loss of sight in one eye. The vet, Jim Pollock, is president of North Queensland Wildlife Care Inc.

A new adult female brushtail has been around lately. She is still nervous - when she realizes she has been spotted, she usually flees. She has a joey in the pouch. We don't know if she will be staying around, but for now we have named her Hazel. In this photo, she is partially obscured, but you can see glowing red eyes. Here is a profile shot.

Here's a very silly photo of Queek on the roof from October (I had forgotten about this photo). Also from October is this photo of a rainbow lorikeet.

19/11/07: It seems that in New Zealand, where brushtail possums were introduced and are now considered pests, a use has been found for these otherwise unwanted creatures. They are now making gloves and hats from possum wool. They are probably not shearing the possums and then letting them go again to grow a new coat, but I suppose the idea of having soft possum fur clothing is kind of cute. Anyway, GK spotted this display at the Alice Springs airport recently. He says the items are soft, but not as soft as actual possum fur, because other material has been added in. [Possums are protected animals in Australia, but in New Zealand they are not.]

Pumpkin likes mango very much. She has recently curled her tail around GK's finger and mine on separate occasions. (She has quite a grip.)

Last night, GK spotted a carpet python on the balcony, which is about 4 metres off the ground. When GK tried to photograph it, it headed for the trees. The python (shown here in something of an s-formation) is fairly long, but definitely not as plump/big as one he photographed a while back on the garden floor.

Two vets have commented that Queek's eye shows improvement.

23/11/07: Queek's eye continues to heal: front view and side view.

We have a few new photos of Pumpkin: happily eating mango, a profile shot that shows her pouch plumping up, grasping GK's fingers with her tail, twisting her face/hamming it up for the camera, sweet Pumpkin.

28/11/07: A new photo of Queek's eye (taken today in the early hours of the morning.)

27/12/07: It looks like Queek will have a small permanent scar on his eye, but on the whole he has adjusted very well. The iris does not seem much affected, which is good. More of the blue spot (cute photo in which Queek has him mouth open) should disappear over time. He visits regularly, and stays frequently in one of the nestboxes. Here, Queek samples cracklings at Christmas. (He nibbled a bit, then dropped it.)

Queek is probably the dominant male in the area now. We have not seen Blackbeard or Kwila for a very long time, and are not sure that they will return. We have not seen any females around at all.

Obviously we have a lot to learn about possums. Aside from whether it's beneficial or harmful to possums for them to have human contact, it can be very hard on humans not knowing what is going on with the possums they have come to know.

The last time Pumpkin stopped by, we were able to glimpse her babies in the pouch - they had fur at that stage, and may now be back-riding.

There has been another male brushtail in the area, and perhaps he and Queek are fighting over this territory. He has a white-tipped tail, and at first we wondered if this new male was the actual Queek we had known as a baby. (Here is a photo which shows that Queek may be trimming the white fur at the end of his tail.) It is difficult to know for sure, as many brushtails have similar features. However, from many angles this new possum's face reminds me of Jezebel or Hazel, and it could be that he is related to one of them. The tips of his ears have a kind of glowing quality (even from quite a distance), and at first I was calling him 'Mr. White Ears'. However, we are now trying out the name Basil to see how he likes it.

27/01/08: The blue spot on Queek's eye is lighter in colour, but is not changing in size. From some angles it looks bigger than it does from others. Here is a photo from mid-January. Queek compensates well and seems a happy possum.

Pumpkin has stopped by a few times in the new year to nibble mango and hang out. In early January, she was quite round. We have not seen the back-riding babies yet, but have seen Pumpkin without a plump pouch, and have heard that ringtails will often leave their young in the nest while they go out to forage.

Basil is still around, and has accepted his name. He is a more nervous possum than Queek. When he takes food, he still sometimes tries to scratch, although he is a bit more gentle now. Up close, Basil's facial features are different to the possums we have had most contact with. His eyes in particular have a different look, and his ears continue to have a glowing look. In this photo, Basil resembles Queek, although Basil has a thicker beard.

Today GK's Notes on Nestboxes has been updated.

24/02/08: More trees have been cleared across the way, and further down the street it is likely trees will be cleared before construction on a new school begins. Basil and Queek seem to be coexisting without too much drama.

Yesterday, the temperature outside reached 39 C here. Queek was uncomfortable in the possum box, and kept poking out his head to stretch and get some air. He was breathing more rapidly than usual, and kept licking his hands and arms, perhaps in an attempt to cool down.

While Queek was in the box, GK noticed a carpet python that appeared to have tied itself in a knot. It was in a tree approximately 4m off the ground. In the first photo, you can't tell that it is still daylight.

A new possum is in the area. We think it is a female about the age Kwila would be now, but it is not Kwila. This one has a pronounced white tip on her tail, and we wonder if she is Jezebel's baby, and/or related to Basil. She is a little bit shy, but might be curious about us.

27/03/08: We named the new possum Leena, which is an Aboriginal word for possum (mouse possum). She might be Queek's girlfriend. (We have seen them together.) There is now another new possum, a baby one who has recently put in several appearances, with and without its mother - Hazel. If it turns out to be a girl, it may be named Veruca. (Extra photo).

We have also seen Basil and Hazel together. It is at present possum mating season.

Here is a striking photo of a butterfly that GK took.

24/06/08: Leena and Queek now appear to be the dominant brushtails in the area. Basil, Hazel and Hazel's baby have not been seen for months. Leena has a baby in the pouch. Leena is very pretty and somewhat shy. Queek looks healthy. Most nights he sleeps in one of the two brushtail nextboxes here. He seems to prefer the smaller box, but does occasionally choose the larger one at the back of the property.

18/07/08: Leena's baby is growing.

13/09/08: On August 25th, I think I saw Švejk. A male possum, a bit smaller than Queek, appeared near the house. He looked familiar to me, responded to his name/my voice, and took food from my hand. Up close, he reminded me very much of Švejk. I haven't seen him since, and at the time didn't want to scare him off by setting off a flash in his face. He appeared to be in good condition.

GK and I have just returned from a trip to Tasmania. We stayed in a cabin at Cradle Mountain, where we met four of the local possums. Rufus the Tasmanian Toe-biter, bigger than QLD possums, with rufous colouring, a closeup. (the guest book mentioned him frequently, he has the air of a dominant male, he even resembles Blackbeard somewhat), Scarlet (a sweet-natured possum, a bit like Leena but less shy, and quite round, with a joey in the pouch), Darth, (a dark chocolate-coloured male, anxious, perhaps a marauding male responsible for a gash on Rufus' groin area - Darth appears in diary on the right) and Caspar, (a smaller male, possible offspring of Rufus and Scarlet, who got into a boxing match with a pademelon after it pulled his tail. In the second photo, it can be seen that Caspar has a minor eye infection).

Pademelons are a type of wallaby commonly found in the area. We aren't familiar enough with pademelons to easily distinguish between them, but in the guest book, a father was referred to as Paddy, mother Padme, and I am not sure if a baby had a name or was simply 'the joey'. We saw many pademelons, probably at least 5. They often squabbled amongst themselves. They have very powerful back legs, and it is possible that Rufus' wound was the result of a run-in with a pademelon. Pademelons: baby pademelon, grown pademelon, very round standing pademelon, pair of pademelons.

We also saw some wombats roaming around, including a mother with a baby, and one using a pedestrian bridge near Cradle Mountain Lodge.

At Trowunna Wildlife Park, GK photographed various Tasmanian Devils, spotted quolls, we were allowed to pet a koala, wombat, baby pademelon and a devil, and GK held/cuddled a wombat. Photos: Tasmanian Devil, spotted quoll.

Rufus was 'Roofus' in the early guest book entries, and later the name mutated. He does possess rufous colouring. None of the other possums were named, so GK and I thought up a few names. When we first arrived, the size of the possum turds on the porch surprised us. It may be difficult to see scale from the photos, but Tasmanian possums are very large in comparison to Queensland ones, with rounder looking bodies. Their ears and heads are perhaps smaller in proportion to their bodies as well. Scarlet and Darth had chunks missing out of their ears, but didn't have draggle ears. Rufus was the only toe-biter.

Leena's baby is only barely contained by the pouch, so we expect to see a back-rider any day now.

19/09/08: Leena's baby is now back-riding (We only have a blurry photo from a distance so far). We don't know the sex yet, or have a name. A few photos of Leena: clowning, with a sore, over-stretched pouch and with a tomato sauce moustache. Leena also appears in the diary photo to the right.

This is my (Xesce's) last entry on Possum TV, however, GK may continue to update the site.

13/10/08: This is GK here. Now that I'm in charge of the possum TV diary there will be new innovations not previously seen; typos, poorly processed photos and irregular updates, just to name a few. Anyway, I'll do my best.

Leena has finally brought her baby onto the balcony rail and even briefly took it into the the house (and another cute photo of the pair). The baby is female, but we haven't named it yet. Despite her innocent looks, she's quite ready to tear food out of her mother's mouth. Leena seems to resent having her dinner snatched more than Ginger and Cocoa did and she's taking to leaving her baby behind the last few times she's visited. Her baby came close to the house once on her own, but usually hides away elsewhere.

A mother and baby ringtail have also been around. The mother looks like Pumpkin, but I can't be sure; she refused mango, which is very unlike Pumpkin.

The little male possum who looks like Švejk has been seen around the place. His face certainly reminds me of Švejk, but he's much less bold than when he was a youngster. Maybe he's learned caution since then. The other possums chase him off when they see him. In other news, a brush turkey has started building his mound in the back yard. I'll post some photos soon.

24/11/08: We have named Leena's baby Kiki. Here is a photo of her from last month surfacing like a shark under Leena to grab a juicy piece of banana. As of about a week ago she became independent. More photos of her enjoying her first mango, dangling, twisting like a silly thing, scampering around on the balcony and sneaking along the balcony rail. She's still quite a nervous little possum and tends to scratch at a hand offering her food; possibly she's scared we'll snatch it back from her.

The turkey, who we named Attila because of his efforts to take over the yard, managed to build a very impressive mound. Unfortunately, Attila managed to upset an unsympathetic neighbour by kicking leaf litter onto his driveway and immediately afterwards disappeared. Of course this might be a coincidence, and I admit it's difficult to imagine how the guy could have made away with a large, angry, turkey in the middle of the day without either being seen or heard, however, he's a notorious wildlife hater and it would be quite in character for him to do something nasty. In passing I should mention that, like possums, brush turkeys are protected animals, and, in Queensland, "taking" (i.e. killing or capturing) such an animal without a permit is punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 under section 88 (2) (d) of the Nature Conservation Act.

11/12/08: Queek has been having a bit of a rough time lately. At about 7pm on 2/11/08, when he was getting ready to leave his box for the night, another possum (we think it was Švejk) came into the box and fought with him. It sounded very fierce, but we later saw Queek and he had no visible injuries. This evening at about 5:30pm, the box Queek was sleeping in broke away from its tree during a storm and fell 4 meters to the ground. We were worried about Queek and as soon as it became dark we baked some gingerbread to lure him to the house. This strategy was successful and he turned up soon after, climbing through the trees without any problems and apparently no worse for the experience.

I've made some additions to the nestbox construction page about the reasons the box fell and how we can prevent it from happening again. I'll try to replace the box, with modifications, in the next couple of days.

9/1/09: The possum box was repaired and replaced on Dec 15th. As part of the repairs, we painted the box and we were a little worried that the paint smell might turn possums off. Queek, however, wasn't scared off by either the paint or the fall and slept in the box the very next day. He seems to like this box; he's been using it continuously for the past 10 days. Also, quite a few times recently, Leena has popped into the box after Queek has left for the night. She generally seems to sniff around in the box for a couple of minutes and then leave. It might be that she's considering using this box as a place to bring up her new baby.

Queek, Leena and Kiki have all been regular visitors over the past month, with Švejk occasionally dropping by. All are in good health with no visible pluckings. Queek had a small cut on his chin which may have happened when the box fell, but this quickly healed. Švejk is still very nervous. Kiki is growing up but still scratches and grabs fiercely when offered food.

Attila has returned - at least it's either him or another male turkey who's taken over his mound. He's not quite as energetic in maintaining his mound as he used to be, but he can still be seen digging holes in it one day, and then filling them in the next. No doubt there's some logic to it.

4/2/09: Despite the big storm we had not long ago, and despite the interference of a neighbour, the eggs in Attila's mound are hatching. So far I've seen two different turkey chicks around the place. One chick is only a bit over a week old, and quite happily scratching around in the leaf litter. The other is a few weeks old. Before he popped his head out, this one was quite well camouflaged roosting in a tree. I'm not sure how they'll get on; nearly everyone in the area has either a dog or a cat and according to Wildlife Queensland only 1 in 200 turkey chicks live to reach adulthood.

On 26/1/2009 I put up a third possum box. I had the camera installed right from the start so that we could see how soon possums started using it; we've read that possums take weeks or months to get used to a new box. Not so here. The second night it was up, both Queek and Kiki came to check it out. During the fourth day, Queek slept in the box, and that night Leena also came to check it out. Last night Kiki entered the box again and rolled around in it on her back, possibly leaving her scent to stake her claim. The following morning Queek entered the box an hour earlier than his usual time, possibly to get in before Kiki did.

25/3/09: Last night we saw Leena's new baby backriding for the first time. It's still very young (it might be the youngest backrider we've seen so far) and Leena only showed it to us briefly, so we don't even know what gender it is. We'll have to wait a while before we can give it a name. The orange colour isn't an artifact of the camera; the little possum does look like it's just been rescued from a bowl of spaghetti sauce. I'm not sure whether this is just because it's so young, Queek was very orange as a baby, but Svejk much less so.

I notice that I've got very few photos of Leena - both in this diary and in general - even though she's the dominant possum of the area and has been around long enough to have had two babies. The reason for this is that Leena usually sits calmly in a tree and always tends to look the same. To help redress this imbalance, here's a photo of her fiendishly toe-biting.

Švejk is still around. He hasn't come over to the house for quite a while, but last night he entered possum box 3 and nervously sniffed around for a bit, so we know he's still OK. And at this point I should probably mention something: Anyone reading the previous diary might be wondering how I can tell which possums visited which boxes; was I up all night looking at the cameras or something? The fact is that around the end of last year I set up a webcam server which automatically records when it sees motion on a possum box camera. It wasn't until February this year that I got it working reliably on all cameras, and I'm still not completely happy with it, but it's been very helpful in picking up brief nocturnal visits made by possums. For anyone who's interested, the server is on the web at http://www.possum.dyndns.tv/. Please don't be too critical, the thing is crippled by the slow uplink speed of our cable connection and I've had to use the old-fashioned (and very slow) webcam technique of a periodically updated JPEG, rather than proper streaming video.

So far this year, Queek has slept every single day in one or other of our boxes. Since box 3 went up he's spent almost exactly equal time in each box (18 days in box 1, 22 days in box 2 and 18 days in box 3). I don't know whether he simply prefers man-made possum boxes, or whether he's been forced out of more desirable locations by the female possums.

23/4/09: For two weeks at the beginning of April, Leena's baby was nowhere to be seen, even though Leena was coming to the house regularly. We were a little worried that the baby might have been lost because it seemed too small to have been left on its own for extended periods, especially during the heavy rains and storms we had during this period. However, a week ago, the baby turned up riding on Leena's back. The baby is female and we've named her Kirra, which is an Aboriginal word meaning "leaf". Here's a cute photo of her. Also photos of her pulling Leena's whiskers, boxing with Leena and guiltily hiding to devour a piece of pear she tore from Leena's mouth. Kirra is a very bold little possum (although little possums are often very bold while their mother is around to protect them); we've seen her enter box #2 on her own and she chased off Queek when he came too close. She also seems to learn very fast; only a couple of days after her first contact with the human food trees, she comes forward to take food from hand and allows herself to be touched. She hasn't yet bitten or scratched.

Queek's chin wound appeared to go away, but has now come back again. It doesn't look like a Staph infection (like Blackbeard had) and it might be just a simple wound that keeps getting reopened somehow. We'll be keeping an eye on him. Otherwise, he seems healthy.

The other possums are still around and doing well. Švejk has been visiting frequently. His colouring looks to be getting darker and more rufous. Kiki has grown up and I often can't tell her from Leena. Unfortunately, she hasn't grown out of her annoying habit of snatching angrily at food. A few days back we saw her bring a small bunch of leaves into box #1. We can only speculate on why she did this. Despite all of her nocturnal visits, she has never actually slept in any of the possum boxes so far, but it's possible she's now carrying a baby and wants to bring it up in box #1. This box is probably more suitable than the others for a nursery as there's more room for a baby to romp around.

A couple of nights ago, we saw a black-and-white cat in our yard. The local council laws (Local Law No. 42, Section 24) state that pets such as cats can't be allow to roam at large, and fines of up to $5,000 apply. Not that I want to be a crabby old man, holding everyone to the letter of the law, but stray cats are not a good thing at any time, and they are particularly not a good thing when there are baby possums around. So I've set up a trap baited with cat food. Before you recoil in horror, bear in mind that it's a modern cage trap with a soft-closing door and it's operated by a foot plate, so there are no hooks or other sharp projections to injure the cat. In addition I've fitted a sensor on the door which will alert me as soon as the trap operates, so there's no chance of a cat remaining imprisoned in the trap all night without me knowing about it. Any marauding cats will be taken to the council pound where the owners can pay to have them released.

28/09/10: This is Xesce speaking: After GK's last entry, we decided to retire this site. From the start, I had hoped that GK would eventually create his own site. He now offers content that is much closer to 'possum tv' on his own site. He mentioned the site above, but here's the link again: http://www.possum.dyndns.tv/.

Most recent entry: 28/09/10
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