Funny looking bird in O'Connor

It’s actually a brush tailed cuckoo.

YeahBuddy said :

The thumper household has a possum box and a number of resident possums who eat from our hands and keep their noise to a minimum.

Scare the willys out of the cats though…

Any suggestions on how you reached this peace? My mother is currently engaged in a 2 year war with her resident possum. She caught it at least 5 times and released it close-ish to home (always returned) before the possum out smarted her and figured out the trap. Now she just rages at the roof.

Is that your mum or the possum doing the raging?

I had an intense battle with three possums (mum and two juveniles) late last year and early this year. The part of the roof they came in and out of now looks like Fort Knox. Even when they could no longer get in they kept trying for months. I’d stay up with a loaded SuperSoaker blaster and blast them with water (which they didn’t like very much) – so they changed their routine and came at different times. In the end the only thing that stopped them was barbed wire – and even then they had a few goes at it judging by the fur left behind.

The thumper household has a possum box and a number of resident possums who eat from our hands and keep their noise to a minimum.

Scare the willys out of the cats though…

Any suggestions on how you reached this peace? My mother is currently engaged in a 2 year war with her resident possum. She caught it at least 5 times and released it close-ish to home (always returned) before the possum out smarted her and figured out the trap. Now she just rages at the roof.

‘Oh dear, it’s the possarazzi again. Go away, you annoying person.’

Definitely purpose built for a possum.

My wife used to raise orphaned possums for RSPCA Wildlife, and once they were big enough to be released, this is what we’d use. If we didn’t know where it came from, we’d release in a nature reserve or friendly land owner’s property, or if we did know where home was before and the home owner agreed, in a tree in their back yard.

Let me tell you…standing up a ladder, with a possum in a pillow slip, trying to get it safely into one of these boxes (the lids were hinged btw) could be pretty hairy…especially if the rehab had gone well, and the possum you were releasing acted completely wild!

If you keep your eyes up in our nature reserves and parks though, you’ll start to see these things everywhere. I hope that was the original inhabitant, and it’s enjoyed life in its luxury digs!

I think that’s actually a purpose-built possum box. The RSPCA sell them – the idea is that if you put one outside it can encourage a roof-dwelling possum to move into the new digs instead.