Brushtail Possum

A happy, then sad, and now hopefully happy story about ducks and gardening with nest boxes. So last Christmas I bought lots of different nest boxes and put them up around our new bush home. Then I scooted off to work in the Central Desert region for many months, meanwhile my husband has been getting pretty friendly with the local wood ducks. On my first day home a week ago, I poked my nose into all the nest boxes, and found a ringtail possum in the glider box, and a brush tail possum in the black cockatoo/wood duck box. Cool, I thought.

Then a few days later I saw a wood duck disappearing into the wood duck box for a short while, then she flew away. I poked my nose back inside the box later that day, and alas discovered one partly chewed duck egg, and just the remains of one other.

Likely a brush tail possum’s entree me thinks, no chance Mrs Wood would be back after destruction of her eggs. So I heaved the massive box down and put it on our porch for a day, pondering a plan B.

The following morning I hear Mrs Wood’s Waaaark wak wak wak and felt sad, thinking she’d discovered the nest box gone. Later that morning after the rain stopped, I looked inside the nest box on our back porch for some reason?? and discovered a new duck egg!! She’d seen the nest box on our back porch, walked over and sat in it, and laid that egg.

Onto Google I immediately went, in search of ideas for possum barriers for trees, then hightailed it to Bunnings for some thick polycarbonate plastic. Rigged up two possum tree guards (above and below) late that afternoon and heaved the nest box back up the tree, together with a couple of wildlife camera traps to catch any possum or duck action, and crossed my fingers for the next day. Would she? Surely not!

Well she did! (isn’t that quite incredible?) There are now two duck eggs in the wood duck box, and she’s visited the box twice today according to my wildlife camera. All my fingers and toes are crossed that everything goes well for Mrs Wood and her eggs, it would be lovely to see ducklings soon. Goes to show that wildlife and people can work together 🙂

This is our second Madam Wood, fighting for the lives of her 18 developing eggs last night. She lost, and almost paid with her life. In a second video clip the possum dragged her out of the nest box, and she fled into the dark night. The Woods returned at first light this morning but decided to abandon their nest. I don’t blame them. The eggs were icy cold this evening when I discovered the carnage of broken eggs and the camera footage. I had put possum guards on the tree, but the possum had discovered a high altitude branch crossing for the first time last night. 

Human impacts on nature can come in many forms. We live next door to a wildlife carer who rescues and soft-releases brush tail possums at her home and has done for many years, they are not returned to where they were found. This is not uncommon for rescuers to do this I understand, also relocation programs where land is to be cleared is another example. We have at least 20 living on our 5 Acre woodland property, some nights it appears as if there is a possum up every tree. Things are seriously out of kilter, ecosystem arboreal predator carrying capacity-wise. 

The irony is that by saving each life and releasing many brushtail possums over time at the one location with free food at home base, the lives of many more animals are lost or offspring eaten. These numerous possums also compete against other animals for the few remaining large tree hollows. The ecosystem is out of balance. I haven’t seen any bush birds nest successfully on our woodland property in the two years we’ve been here. 

Of four active duck nest boxes this year so far, three have now been raided by brushtail possums. This is the latest and the only one with a full clutch of eggs part-way through incubation. At least I can move these boxes to more protectable trees, now I know the extent of the possum threat. The other bush birds don’t stand a chance. 

I don’t dislike possums, but there are consequences for releasing large numbers of one species into an ecosystem already, at or over carrying capacity.