Wrong identification

We often get called out to pick up a certain type of animal and it turns out to be something different. Someone might ring and say they have an injured ringtail or glider and it turns out to be a brushtail. They often confuse peewees with magpies. I even know of one case where carers were called out to pick up a king brown snake that turned out to be a tiny legless lizard.

So, when I recently came across the picture below I thought it was quite funny, something I, and I'm sure a lot of other carers, could relate to.



However, in the course of looking for the picture again to use it in this blog, I found the following picture.



Seems like this one might circulate for a while in a few different guises. There's more about it here. Apparently the Australian one was not the original.

Incidentally, if that possum in the first picture had truly just been found and was not friendly, there's no way I'd be holding it like that. One hand round the neck and shoulders and the other on the base of the tail so they're facing away from you is the safest way.

Peek-a-boo

We try to handle the animals as little as possible so they don't get to used to us. It seems to be working.



Clive knows it's dinner time, but he's not coming out of his drey until some food is put in his cage and I'm not standing there scaring him with a great big camera.

He has a habit now of peering around the corner at us like he is here. Of course once there's fresh food in the cage, all bets are off. He'll fight you for a nice piece of bok choi.

An update

We've been a bit slack with this blog just lately, mainly because we've both got assignments and other priorities. After getting home from work or TAFE and spending an hour feeding all the animals we generally just want to relax.

Donna wrote about Lucky the other day, and the fact he still hasn't been released, but what about the other animals?

Clive, Widdle and Puke are all growing quickly and eating just about everything we give them. Donna decided a couple of weeks ago that it was time to weigh the ringtails just to make sure they aren't putting on weight too quickly or too slowly.

There's two problems with this idea. Firstly, it's best to handle them as little as possible so as to reduce stress and not get them too used to humans. Secondly, the little buggers bite, painfully. Donna has now decided they don't need weighing, we can tell by looking at them if they're too thin or too fat..

We've also had a few other animals come into care in the past few weeks.

We had a young dove that had flown into someones back window and concussed itself. It spent the night at our place and was released back where it came from the next afternoon. After releasing the dove, we went and picked up a sick Galah, also a juvenile. This one was severely undernourished. It spent a couple of nights with us and was then passsed onto Natasja, our co-ordinator and bird expert. Unfortunately, it died a couple of days later.

A week later we got called out to pick up a young ringtail possum that had been attacked by a dog. On first inspection it turned out to be a brushtail, not a ringtail. She was in a pretty bad way, so we took her to the nearest 24 hour vet in our area. We were told there that the bite had only punctured the first layer of skin and that it was mainly a case of shock. It turned out there was more too her injuries than that, we suspect internal injuries. Needless to say, even though she managed to eat some mashed up banana when we got her home, she didn't make it through the night.

We did get a call to pick up a sugar glider last Thursday, but neither of us were at home. By the time we got the message someone else would have been found to pick it up. I'd love to look after a sugar glider, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was just another young brushtail.

Lucky??????????????Not

We have a possum named lucky. We have had lucky for a long time, I think too long. He needs to be released, he should have been released back in November before we went on holidays, but because he has been in our care for a long period of time and has had some major health issues, he's become used to us, we are at a loss as to what to do with him. Bottom line, he needs to be released, or at least moved on away from our influence.

Tonight he just about his destroyed his cage with broken branches and shelves etc. we are at our wits ends as to what to do with him. No release site has been found for him yet. I feel for him every night, he is too big to be in care anymore. There has to be somewhere he can go. He is healthy now, but because he has been in our care for so long he is to used to us, so he needs someone else to take him on before release so he becomes more wild. That is not happening. I so want to go out side and release him here but it is not viable as we have to many brushtail possums in the area and a dog. AGHHHHHHHHHHH. I am getting as frustrated as he is. The bottom photo above is when he was at his worst. The two photos above at his best and how he is now.

Widdle and Puke

When I last posted I mentioned we'd got new possums, but we didn't have names for them.

Well, for the brushtail the name Clive stuck. I'm sure my cousin would be proud.

Just before we got the possums, I was reading Gerald Durrell's "My Family and other Animals". If you've ever read the book, you'll know that he once had two dogs named "Widdle" and "Puke". As there were no better suggestions the ringtails are now named Widdle and Puke.

Below are a couple of pics of the new additions to the family.

New animals

It's been a while since I last posted here, mainly because we went away on holidays and so weren't getting any more animals in to look after.

Incidentally, while we were away, we visited Monkey World in Dorset. Monkey World is a primate rescue centre that looks after animals that have been kept illegally as pets. These are animals that could never be released into the wild again, but it's interesting to see the parallels between what we're doing with our native animals and they're doing with the apes, in as far as rehabilitation.

Anyway, today we picked up three new animals, a brushtail possum and two ringtail possums. The ringtails are in the aviary where Mogwai used to live and the brushtail, being younger, is in a cage inside.

No pictures of them yet, as we're letting them settle in at the moment. No names either, partly because we don't even know what sex the ringtails are. Again, we'll let them settle in a bit first before we have a look. The brushtail is a male, but nothing springs to mind as a suitable name yet. I have a cousin, Clive, in England who has a very simple method of naming animals. He just gives them normal, everyday, human names. He has several jack russells, two of whom are called Norman and Douglas. Perhaps we'll call the brushtail Clive, I think its namesake would appreciate that.

Stunned???

Yeah. You stunned 'im just as 'e was wakin up. Norwegian Blues stun easy.

It seems I owe the lorikeet an apology. It wasn't drunk but concussed. I'm not sure how well the vet examined him, but most vets know a lot about dogs and cats, but don't have much experience with birds, especially wild ones.

Donna took the lori over to Natasja's on the weekend. When she examined it she found its pupils were dilated and took a long time to react when a light was shone in them. It also has a bruised wing.

Anyone that lives in Australia and is familiar with lorikeets will know how prone they are to flying into things; walls, sheds, parked cars. It's really scary standing in your back yard and suddenly having a half dozen of them take flight and fly past you below head height. My usual reaction is too duck as low as possible as soon as I hear them take off. The picture below was taken just before I ducked, about six months ago. I still don't know if it was a wing, or just my camera strap that brushed my head as I ducked. I was standing in front of a garden arch at the time and most of them flew through it.



Apparently it can take as long as three weeks for them to recover from concusion. Hopefully it'll be ready for release before we go away on holidays.