May 29 2008
Possum Caught Red Handed!
If you’ve ever been to Australia, you’ll undoubtedly be familiar with the “friendly” neighbourhood possum. These rodents are kind of cute, but are well known suburban pests - they take up residence in your roof, making a racket at night, and have extremely sharp claws that can easily cause damage.
Coming home late after a night out, I was greeted at my front door by a possum ransacking the garbage bags on the ground! Thankfully, I had my trusty Canon Powershot S80 handy, so I whipped it out to take this photo:
Naturally, as soon as the possum saw me it jumped off the ground onto the chair nearby. So, I went inside. Shortly after I heard a rustling sound and discovered the cheeky little fur ball had decided to come back for seconds! This time I really wanted to catch it “red handed” with my camera, so I quietly opened the door, and…:
By now this possum really had little to no fear of me. I was still being wary, as these little things can rip you to shreds. As a kid I remember opening up the linen closet to find a little possum had made its home in the winter blankets on the top shelf. My grandfather had to come with his thick leather gloves to remove it, and boy did it struggle furiously!
Unfortunately, the desire to not wake up to trash being strewn all over the landing meant the bags were brought in, and the possum’s night time snack was over.
A few lessons here - always have your camera with you, and don’t leave rubbish outside over night!
