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| Koru - 5th Oct 2019 |
Koru's mother Nikita has not been seen for several weeks. Nikita's father Koji and grandfather Wasabi would occasionally go away for weeks at a time, but this is unusual for Nikita.
Another young male ringtail of Koru's size is occasionally seen near the house. This is almost certainly one of Pebbles' babies. Pebbles herself and her other baby have not been seen in a while.
Miel still back-rides on Sasha most of the time when they visit the house.
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| Sasha with Miel back-riding - 12th Sept 2019 |
In the photo above it looks like he's getting a bit big for back-riding, but Sasha is an experienced mother and I'm sure she is a better judge of this than an ignorant human like me. Her previous baby, Zak, went missing at an early age so maybe she's taking particularly good care of her current one. Sasha is quite strong enough to leap from a handrail up into a tree with Miel on her back.
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| Sasha [left] and Miel [right] - 20th Sept 2019 |
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| Miel, with Sasha in the background - 20th Sept 2019 |
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| Miel - 14th Sept 2019 |
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| Miel - 9th Oct 2019 |
Bilbo is visiting regularly and seems to be in overall good health, although he has just managed to pick up some minor scratches to his face.
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| Bilbo - 9th Oct 2019 |
He has had a number of small wounds and twice has had ticks attach themselves to the area of the wound. For new readers, the ticks here are known as Paralysis Ticks and, as the name suggests, are unpleasant things. They are a serious danger to dogs and cats, but possums are immune to their toxins and they're only a problem if they get into somewhere like an eye where they can cause physical damage.
In the photos I've posted, you might notice that there is very little green foliage about. There has been a fairly severe drought here. Normally at this time of year the garden would be green and flourishing, but it is now dry and withered with many trees leafless. This is probably impacting on the possums. Normally they would be feasting on fresh buds in the Chinese Elm near the house, but now they disappear to the back of the garden, probably to eat much less tasty gum-leaves.
The drought is forecast to continue until late next year and water restrictions are being proposed for early next year.
It's very sad to hear about the drought. Even though I have returned back to Europe four years ago, we keep in touch with the news from our beloved Australia, and it is really scary how fast and how severe the climate change is there. We have been considering coming back to Tasmania for good one day, but somehow it seems that climate emergency is a real threat. Great that you can take care for local wildlife and provide some supplement food and water.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty bad here at the moment. Some of the possum boxes got over 40 C yesterday. That rarely happens, even in summer. Today the sky was full of smoke and dust from all of the bush-fires.
DeleteWhat's scary and depressing is that both of the major political parties are doing every possible thing they can to make the situation worse.
We do what we can for the wildlife, but I fear that this is not going to be enough.
I think you are wise in not coming back here at the moment. Maybe sanity will prevail in the future, but currently the place is being run by psychopaths.
I'm very sad to hear it from a local, since the similar impression we got from all the news and articles, but there is always hope that being long way away, you miss some part of the story :( The government seems like a bunch of lying money sacks, like in my original home country, Russia, which I have left 15 years ago. And that is a global trend, people are afraid to look at the reality, and support similar escapists in
Deletepower. I really hope there is still a way out of it before the point of no return is far behind.