Drak is growing up.
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| Drak - 11th Oct 2025 |
He shares a box with his mother Blossom, but no longer back-rides and recently has got up the courage to visit the house on his own.
Normally I post a lot of photos of the latest baby possum, but I haven't been posting much lately, so here are a few to make up for the loss.
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| Drak back-riding on Blossom - 8th Aug 2025 |
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| Blossom (left) and Drak (right) - 4thSept 2025 |
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| Drak (left) and Blossom (right) - 11th Sept 2025 |
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| Drak - 11th Sept 2025 |
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| Drak - 11th Sept 2025 |
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| Drak - 1st Oct 2025 |
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| Drak - 11th Oct 2025 |
His mother
Blossom is in good health.
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| Blossom - 13th Sept 2025 |
His sister,
Sprout still lives nearby and visits most nights. She is also in good health with a baby in the pouch. Although she is a regular visitor she normally sleeps elsewhere (possibly in Sasha's old territory to the East) but she recently decided to use Box 1 - just in time for us to see her baby emerging from the pouch.
I think it will be at least a week before the baby starts back-riding.
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| Sprout - 8th Aug 2025 |
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| Sprout - 4th Sept 2025 |
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| Sprout - 23rd Oct 2025 |
Gandalf is still around and also in good health. He has no pluckings or other signs of fighting.
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| Gandalf - 13th Sept 2025 |
There seem to be at least two families of ringtails in the area. They never visit the humans for food so we don't get to see them up close and from a distance it's difficult to tell them apart. This makes it difficult to give them names.
But one of them has been named - Roxy. Roxy is the female ringtail who started using Box 8 and brought her two babies with her. She is recognisable by a kink in her tail.
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| Roxy - 10th Sept 2025 |
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| Roxy - 14th Sept 2025 |
Rudy is still around. He was the one who started using Box 2 and is still to be seen in boxes 2 and 8.
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| Rudy - 10th Sept 2025 |
Ahab is also still around.
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| Ahab - 19th Sept 2025 |
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| Ahab - 19th Sept 2025 |
There was another female ringtail who has two little back-riding babies. She hadn't been named yet. She doesn't have any obvious distinguishing features, and once the babies are off her back, it will be difficult to tell her apart from the other unnamed ringtails.
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| Ringtail with babies in pouch - 28th Sept 2025 |
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| Ringtail with babies back-riding - 10th Oct 2025 |
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| Ringtail with babies back-riding - 11th Oct 2025 |
One night there were five ringtails all visible at one time, widely scattered through the trees. Roxy was near to the humans, but ignored them and was staring intently into the distance.
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| Roxy - 10th Sept 2025 |
It turned out there was a good reason for this.
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| Carpet Python - 10th Sept 2025 |
While I might be reading more into it than was actually happening, it seemed like the ringtails had known there was a threat in the area and were working together and had spread out to keep watch over the garden.
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| Carpet Python - 10th Sept 2025 |
This python was easily big enough to eat a ringtail and would have been a danger to brushtails too, but it seems to have left without taking any possums.
Other News:
The water dragons have been out of hibernation for a while now.
Brush turkeys Merlin, Tabatha and Saskia are seen most days. Tabatha and Saskia are often seen on Merlin's mound. At one stage, Saskia appeared to have an injured leg, but that has healed. Tabatha's leg is still bad and not going to get better, but this doesn't hamper her, and she tends to bully Saskia if there is food on offer.
Also, I am looking to replace the Possum TV webcam server some time soon.
The existing server has been running continuously since 2016 and is still going strong, but the hard disk is now 99% full. Upgrading the hard disk would have been possible, but it would have involved significant downtime for the server and there are a number of annoying issues with the server which I would like to address and which require sufficiently major changes that I considered it easier to build a new server from scratch.
A new server has been built and is currently undergoing testing.
I will post something when it goes into service. There might be some teething problems and I would appreciate any feedback - positive or negative.
Glad that Roxy has been christened, though she's been somewhat absent as of late. A couple of months ago (August 25th, I believe) there was an altercation in box 8 between a couple of the ringtails and Blossom/Drak where the former got chased off, do you know if those were Roxy's children, or her and one of them?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm excited to hear the Possum Server is getting updated - though the possums are the star of the show, I like hearing about people's server projects, so I'm looking forward to hearing more about the setup.
Thank you so much for letting me know about what happened on August 25th. Sometimes I get way behind on reviewing and commenting the movies and I have to rush to catch up, and it looks like I somehow missed this altercation. This is probably the first time there has a direct confrontation between a ringtail and a brushtail in one of the boxes.
DeleteI'm thinking the two ringtails were Roxy's children, but it's difficult to tell. There seem to be a few ringtails who come and go at random and I can never tell who is who. Today, a ringtail sheltered from the rain in Box 4 for a short time this afternoon.
I'm really happy to see that Drak is doing well: it seems like he's even been sleeping in his own box recently.
ReplyDelete