Tuesday 13 August 2013

Update 13th August 2013 - Kiki's new baby shows itself

I've seen Kiki's latest baby for the first time. Kiki decided to visit box 7 and the little baby came out of the pouch to play when they were in the safety of the box. The baby is more well developed than I'd imagined. It's well past the "starved frog" stage and looks and acts like a proper possum. It looks like I was wrong in my last blog entry and it will be back-riding before spring.

Kiki about to be scrabbled in the face by her baby - 12th August 2013

The baby was very active throughout the day, which probably means that it's sleeping in the pouch for all or most of the night.

This must not be a fun stage of possum motherhood; you have to lug a plump little baby around all night, and then when you're trying to sleep during the day, the baby is awake, jumping all over you, biting your ears and so on. And there's no father possum to help out.

It's probably unfair to judge based on just two days of footage, but so far the latest baby seems to be just as active and inquisitive as Spock, but considerably more cheeky. It spent a lot of time biting ears and toes and scrabbling Kiki in the face.

The marauding male possum is still around. He's been seen in the trees a few times, but hasn't come near enough to be photographed.

Spock has not been seen for a little over two weeks. He was at about the age where little possums get chased away from home and hopefully this is what has happened, although it's always worrying when a possum that has been visiting regularly suddenly disappears.

Here's the last picture I have of Spock.

Spock grooming his tail 24th July 2013

Wasabi has turned up again. His chin wound has completely healed and he's just as confident as ever. Here's a photo of him examining my foot; fortunately he's not a toe-biter.

Wasabi 10th August 2013

And here's a photo of him drinking from a bucket of water. The water is kept on the balcony mainly for throwing over trespassing cats, or pythons that make a nuisance of themselves, but occasionally possums use it to quench their thirst.

Wasabi 10th August 2013

There have also been two more ringtails seen about, but they haven't come close enough for long enough to be identified.

1 comment:

  1. Love the top photo! Our latest bub is still just a bump in Mum's pouch, but my God this one is active. We're lucky that last year's bub, despite being male, is still around.

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