Update 24th April 2020

Rahmet is now entering the "teenager" stage of a young possum's life. He often sleeps on his own and his mother now chases him off if he tries to take food off her. He is still usually tolerated by Sasha and it will probably be at least another a couple of months before he is chased out of the area for good.

Rahmet - 4th Apr 2020

Rahmet - 14th Apr 2020

Not long ago, he was seen chasing Marcel. Young brushtails start off by copying the behaviour of their mothers and giving cheek to the dominant male possum in the area. They get away with it at first because the male knows that the little one is still under the protection of its mother. But the mother possum withdraws her protection over time and the young possum comes to the unwelcome realisation that he's no longer a little favoured prince, but a small possum in a world full of enemies.

Rahmet is not quite at this stage yet, but recently Marcel has become less tolerant of him.

Sasha (left) and Rahmet (right) - 4th Apr 2020

Sasha and Rahmet are in good health but Marcel has picked up a wound under his tail. He seems to be a very tough possum and has shrugged off a lot of wounds without needing treatment, so hopefully there won't be any problems.

Marcel - 18th Apr 2020

Nikita has been visiting quite frequently. She is in particularly good health and has babies in her pouch, although they are still very small and won't been seen for a while. 

Nikita - 11th Apr 2020

One night she brought a young possum with her, probably one of her babies from when she wasn't visiting. The possum may be a girl and has been named Rio. Rio also looks to be in particularly good condition.

Unfortunately, all three brushtails were present at the time and Rahmet in particular was making a nuisance of himself. Rio retreated to a tree a safe distance away and looked out at the brushtails chasing each other around and was no doubt not very impressed.

Rio - 20th Apr 2020

Rio has a lot of white on her tail and will probably be recognised if she comes back. By the way, she looks plump in the photo, but that's just the way she is sitting, she actually looks like a very thin possum. 

Here is the circus that Rio was watching; all jealously checking to see if anyone else is getting food that they aren't.

Rahmet [top], Sasha [bottom left] and Marcel [bottom right] - 20th Apr 2020

There is a new honorary possum; Morse the rat.

Morse - 13th Apr 2020

Morse was named because she first introduced herself by leaving messages - dots and dashes of poo - near the water bucket on the balcony. The messages appeared to translate to "please feed me" - she started appearing in the possum feeding area and the poos stopped as soon as she was offered food. 

Morse moves very fast, grabbing food and then vanishing onto the roof, so getting photos of her is difficult. She can be cheeky to possums; sneaking up on them, seemingly with the aim of thieving their food.

Sasha (top left), Morse (top right) and Rahmet (bottom) - 1st Apr 2020

In other news, Galen the gecko hasn't been seen for a while now and is probably no longer with us but a number of other geckos, probably her offspring, are still around.