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Old 28-12-2007, 02:46   #1
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Stop eatin the petunas!!!!

We are currently land locked renovating the house so we can rent it out and go.

Nicolle has been working hard planting flowers to make the place look great.

This morning we were sitting having breakfast on our front balcony and Nicolle suddenly had... a ... well what is it when women nearly chuck a tanty? Well she had one of those because she saw that nearly all of her petunas, which had been flowering beautifully, had gone!

Every flower had been nibbled off!

Tonight we captured the culprit on video! His little face is in the piccy below with some petuna's - the deep red ones - just a bit out of his reach.
He's a very young Brush Tailed Possum. The smallest I've seen.

So we put some fruit out for him to eat

We love having wild critters here as we are just 1 km from the center of Sydney city.
OK, I know New Zealanders dont like our possums, but they are cute!


Mark
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Old 28-12-2007, 03:55   #2
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It’s not that New Zealanders just “don’t like” possums - the possum is not native to NZ (as it is in Oz), and it is considered an ecologically dangerous pest.
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Old 28-12-2007, 08:23   #3
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We have the same basic problem here. I would get upset because the deer ate all of the new trees or plants that I planted again. My wife just kept saying something like, "Well, its ok. We'll just plant more" or something similar. Then one day she went out the door and found that the deer had eaten her pepper plants. This time, she said, "Big 5 has a sale on shotguns today"
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Old 28-12-2007, 09:06   #4
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Some things just are not meant to be. Around here tulip bulbs last about a week. Daffodils last indefinitely. Rabbits, moles, voles, deer, possums and racoons take turns. A family of owls seems to be keeping the rabbits in check though. Oddly none of them seem attracted to our petunia's.

Plants don't always grow well in some ares for many reasons and preditors are a factor. So we plant daffodils and iris instead of other bulbs. While I would like to be able to grow others some times you just have to go with the flow or you never get to go sailing.
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Old 28-12-2007, 13:41   #5
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the deer ate all of the new trees


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. Rabbits, moles, voles, deer, possums and racoons .... A family of owls .


Theres now 2 more places to go cruising!
I think we will be on a whale spotting / wildlife cuddling expedition!
We haven't seen Voles before but they look sensationally cute in the photos. They are rodents? So I guess they do what rodents do! They look very similar to Australian Melomies Photos at melomys - Google Image Search
Melomies are not rodent and hang around up trees like slow moving squirrels. We have a pair living in the pub accross the road! We were having dinner and they just wandered past in some bamboo boarder!

We would love to see photos of peoples back yard animals and the ones they meet cruising. The environment is something very special to us - no, we're not rampant greenies, but we appreciate things we don't have at home and to study the natural world

Especially is its small, furry and cuddly!!!



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Old 28-12-2007, 14:26   #6
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We haven't seen Voles before but they look sensationally cute in the photos. They are rodents? So I guess they do what rodents do
They like to live in the tunnels left by the moles. Once the moles eat all the insects the voles move in and eat plant roots and build nests in the vacant tunnels. You don't normally see them as they live underground. Moles are about the same too. There are hundreds of ways to get rid of them and of course none of them really work so it just allows more ways to get rid of them to spread.
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Old 28-12-2007, 16:41   #7
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they aren't real cuddly but how about the buffalo on Catlina Island.
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Old 28-12-2007, 21:48   #8
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they aren't real cuddly but how about the buffalo on Catlina Island.
Nicolle would try to cuddle them!

they would be great to see! We have buffulo in the Zoo, of course, but they don't look very happy.



Thanks for sharing that one!

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Old 28-12-2007, 23:11   #9
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I have just disposed of the possum caught in our tims trap last night, at this time of year they come in and eat the peel of the lemons, they don't touch the segments at all. So in the morning you wake up with a lot of naked lemons under the tree. We would probably catch around 100 per year, as soon as you take one out another establishes itself in the free territory. Another Aussie import we could do without.
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Old 28-12-2007, 23:43   #10
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. We would probably catch around 100 per year, .
I was in New Zealand last year and they were selling Possum fur jumpers. Fantasticly warm! A bit expensive or I would have bought one.

I don't think we allow imports of pussum fur otherwise you could have a whole industry while knocking down a pest.

Its weird they eat the skin but not the lemon! They're funny and cute!

Bizzare what is native and good in one country is a destructive pest in another.
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Old 29-12-2007, 00:52   #11
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THe possum fur hairs are actually hollow which is the reason they make such warm garments. There is a growing industry based around possum and merino wool mix. And yes they are expensive.
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