Bart Bear's Blog

Two weeks ago they had to cut down a heap of old gum trees near our place. The trees were dead and dropping branches on roofs (my pedantic Dad says this should be "rooves" but nobody says that any more), so they had to go. Last week we started to hear strange scrabbly, slithery noises in our roof and walls. Dad thought it might be mice and put some special food out for them that he says makes them go away. The noises didn't go away and one day Mum heard claws scratching on the laundry roof fan. We thumped the ceiling and something hissed and growled back at us. The oldies knew straight away what it was. We had been invaded by a possum. Possums live in hollows in old trees and this one must have been living in one of the ones that were cut down. He picked on our place as a new spot to live. He climbed into the vent from the ceiling fans and was living in the ducting pipes. He must have thought it was the biggest tree hollow ever. Once we knew where he was we got the possum catcher man in to trap him. We disconnected the top of the ducting and aimed it at a trap with an apple in it. Possies love apples, so last night we heard the trap door snap shut and then a big rattling around as possy tried to get out. He rattled the cage occasionally during the night, so he wasn't popular with the oldies. This morning I went up into the roof and had a talk to him. He wasn't happy. In fact you can see by the mess around the trap that he was scared (Dad removed this word because he says it isn't polite). I told him that he would be collected soon and taken out to a forest where there are lots of trees and lady possums and he calmed down. Somewhere out there he is free again, and our vent pipe has been possum-proofed.

You can see a bigger picture if you click on this one.

Labels: animals