Awesome Possum

This cheerful image of a Leadbeater’s Possum (left) and Sugar Glider (right) is an excerpt from oil painting Time To Grow by Sharon Davson.  Toni Newell’s delightful Fairy Possum poem below prompted this blog … and a great excuse for me to share my own awesome possum poem!  Then there’s Meryl Brown Tobin’s Haiku after she encountered a young ringtail in Victoria – snapped by Hartley Tobin.

 

2021 will mark the 60^th anniversary of the first sighting of a Leadbeater’s Possum Gymnobelideus leadbeateri (aka Fairy Possum) for over 50 years.  Ten years later, it was awarded the momentous status of Victoria’s faunal emblem in celebration.  We are sadly seeing their numbers in decline due to habitat loss.  Friends of Leadbeater’s Possum are working to protect their stunning forest environments in Victoria, so we don’t lose any more of these delightful endangered marsupials.  Our support for their cause can help too.

 

Fairy Possum  by Toni Newell

I’m small and cute,
With big brown eyes,
I weigh very little,
Which is no surprise.
I live in the Highlands,
And eat at night,
Sleep during the day,
In tree-holes, no light.
I survive on insects,
And sap from leaves,
Which mainly comes,
From Acacia trees.
I have brown fur,
I’m soft to touch,
I can live for five years,
Which isn’t much.
An enemy of mine,
Is the feral cat,
Who rob the nests,
In our habitat.
I’m a proud Australian,
As you may know,
I’m the faunal emblem,
For Victoria, on show.

 

Victoria’s Awesome Possum  by Celia Berrell

The Leadbeater’s possum is very shy
and spends its time in trees on high.
It likes eating bugs and nectar and sap
from gumtrees, acacias and mountain ash.

From pink little nose to attentive ears,
the friendliest face imagined appears.
With cute pudgy fingers and tiny nails,
they’ll keep their balance with long brown tails.

Crickets and spiders are favourite food
along with the gums those trees exude.
The sweetest of parties can go for hours
when sipping the nectar from perfumed flowers.

They socially sleep in a group of eight,
hiding in hollows of trees until late.
And getting around is a possum’s breeze,
making breathtaking leaps among the trees.

 

 

HAIKU

end of sweltering day
ringtail possum baby
seeks coolness of dusk

by Meryl Brown Tobin