Rescues, sort of

It's been a bit of a funny weekend rescue-wise.

Yesterday we got called out to a possum that was lying on its back. Details were a bit sketchy, but we got the impression it was on the ground somewhere, so it didn't sound good. A lot of the calls we get come via the RSPCA, or other organisations, so by the time BARN ring us it's a real case of Chinese whispers.

Before we left home Donna rang the person that had called it in and the possum had now moved on to its side. OK, so it's moving at least, that's a good sign.

When we got there, we were shown where the possum was and he was not a happy chappie. He was in the crook of a tree, about three feet from the ground, having a sleep. Donna poked him a couple of times to see if he was alright. He turned around and hissed at her, threatening to tear her limb from limb if she didn't go away. He'd just found a nice place to sleep that happened to be not very private that's all. We're still glad the lady called it in though.

Today we got a call from Natasja from BARN, asking if we could assist with a wallaby. It had been hit by a car, but was still mobile. She needed help to round it up. Donna found it after we'd been traipsing around in the bush for about ten minutes, but it didn't want to be caught and didn't seem to be injured at all so we left it alone.

The picture below shows where the wallaby was.



If you're wondering about the warning, well about three hours later, as we were feeding the animals, I could feel something irritating my leg. It was itching, bordering on being painful. I went inside, dropped my pants and found a very small tick (and I'm not talking facial twitch or what clocks do). The little bugger was only about two inches from my willy.

Donna removed it, and some of my skin, with a pair of tweezers and the irritation is now gone. The funny thing is, we have a tick remover thingy on our car keys. I showed it to the instructor on the first aid course I did last weekend and he asked if I had to use it yet. I hadn't, but we tried it today and it didn't work because the tick was too small.

Anyway, after all that was done and the animals were all fed we had one more wildlife related job to do. We had a ringtail possum brought to us a couple of weeks ago that was a bit out of sorts. We don't really know what was wrong with Eliza, but she definitely got better while she was with us, so this evening was release time.

Ringtails are aboreal, meaning they spend nearly all their time in trees. It's unusual for a ringie to be on the ground, brushtails will get down sometimes, so will koalas, but ringies tend to stay in the trees as much as possible.

We found a place to release Eliza, close to where she'd originally been picked up. We opened up her drey and placed it close to a suitable tree. This particular tree looked perfect, it was big, had a nice rough bark that she could get a grip on, had plenty of branches that she could use to get to other trees. In other words it looked like possum heaven, a real des res.

She sat in her drey for about five minutes and had a bit of a sniff, then out she got. Did she run up the perfect tree we'd selected for her? No, she jumped out of her drey, ran along the ground and shot up the smallest tree she could find.

Hopefully she'll be alright. We released her on dusk, so she's got all night to find herself somewhere to sleep during the day.

So, after all that, two rescues and a release, and the only wildlife we brought home was a blood sucking parasite.

We've now got two empty cages waiting for someone to move in. One will most likely end up with our three little baby ringtails that we've had since last weekend, Yoda, Pinky and Perky. The other, we're hoping to get some birds in it.

We'll post some pics of Yoda and the girls soon, but I'll leave you with this thought. Someone said yesterday when talking about Yoda, "it's because he's so ugly that he's cute".