Update 11th Oct 2012 - Possums, Turkeys and Koalas

We haven't had a picture of Marlon for a while, so here's a recent one of him pulling a face at the camera.

Marlon: "Get lost! I don't want my photo taken!"  5/10/2012

Wasabi recently came back for a brief visit. Here's a photo of him in a fragipani near the house. He is always a friendly and cheerful little possum, despite the ever-present danger of pythons.

Wasabi 2/10/2012 [Photo by Xesce]

Flea hasn't been seen for about a week and half. The weather has been quite hot recently, so it's possible there are hungry pythons active nearby (we haven't seen any in a while, but I'm sure they're still about) and this could be deterring her from approaching the house. Alternatively, she might have been chased off by Kiki. By now, Flea is probably getting weighed down by her baby, so she might not be able to evade Kiki as easily.

A dead possum was found at the base of a nearby power pole recently. I'm assuming it was electrocuted. It was male with a black tail, so it definitely wasn't Flea. All of our males are accounted for except Dexter, but I'm not sure it was Dexter because the black beard-like marking under the chin didn't look big enough.

Svejk's leg now looks alright, but he has picked up another infection on the corner of his mouth. We're keeping a careful eye on it and will treat it if it gets worse.

To give you a bit of change from possums, here is some other wildlife I've seen recently:

Turkeys

This is a brush turkey seen recently in the back yard.

Brush Turkey 7/10/2012

Brush turkeys are frequent visitors. Four years ago one of them, who I named Attila, took over the back yard and built his nest just underneath where this turkey is now standing. It was a pretty impressive nest; a mound of leaf-litter about a meter high and covering half of the patio. There has been no evidence of nest-building so far this year, but maybe we'll see something if it gets wetter; there's certainly a lot of leaf litter around.

Koalas

I was recently in Adelaide for a few days and had a quick visit to Morialta Conservation Park, which was teeming with koalas.

I saw this big Koala in a tree scowling disapprovingly at the walkers passing by below. Unfortunately, I only had my little compact camera with me, so this isn't a very good photo, but I think it shows the sour expression on its face.

Scowling Koala at Morialta Conservation Park 2/10/2012

I haven't had much to do with koalas, but those that I've seen more often than not look surly and bad tempered like this one - at least in the rare intervals they are actually awake. I strongly suspect that the koalas kept for tourists to hug are a small minority; carefully selected for a friendly temperament and not all typical of the pugnacious majority.

Beware: Angry Koalas