Saturday 26 January 2013

Update 26th Jan 2013

Kiki, Pinot and Marlon are still around with no other possums having been sighted in a while.

Marlon 24/1/2013

Marlon's eye wound has got better without treatment. For the first couple of days, the wound had a nasty scab on it, indistinguishable (at least to me) from exudative dermatitis, but after that it rapidly got better and was virtually gone by the one week mark.

Neither Pinot not Kiki show any signs of injury, so I'm assuming that Marlon was fighting with some other possum. With Svejk now gone, Marlon is now probably the dominant male in the area and presumably has the job of seeing off intruders.

Pinot 22/1/2013

Kiki has been back into box 7 a couple of times. I managed to get this film of Kiki's baby climbing into her pouch, upside down with his (it looks like a little boy possum) surprisingly long legs flailing in the air.


Kiki's baby flailing in pouch 21/1/2013

I suppose it makes sense for baby possums to have very well-developed legs. If a baby like this fell off its mother while in a tree, it would be in big trouble.

You can see that, while flailing his legs, the baby kicks Kiki in the mouth a couple of times. Kiki thinks nothing of it, and merely puts her paw in the way of the offending foot. Mother possums start off very tolerant and protective of their babies, but rapidly get less so as the baby grows up.

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