Late March

This time tomorrow night, should all continue to follow the plan it has so far adhered to, the quartet of possums, Ernestine, Henrietta, Beryl, and Bernice, will have the option of climbing the rope in the top of their enclosure and to follow it all the way from their soft release enclosure to the embrace of the yellow gum nearby. It is their turn to, at their leisure, when they are ready, leave the soft release enclosure and head out into the big, open wild. They’ll feel the breeze, hear new scurrying sounds, pass beneath a Krefft’s glider in the night. They’ll climb trees, actual trees, not branches in enclosures, and be at the beginning of a glorious new chapter.

Before we open the soft release enclosure, enjoy this recording of the possums partaking in a floral treat — grevillea, plumbago, and honey myrtle — over seperate days recently, to see and hear their contented munching. Please, turn up your sound, and enjoy the nibblings, and consider planting more native plants in your own garden or green space, if you have one. We all need a home, and we all need something to eat.

We all need gentleness, too, perhaps. Yes.

Having weighed them, one by one, in a soft pouch, to add the last figures to their charts, Ernestine, Henrietta, Beryl, and Bernice have made it: soft-release ready! And we couldn’t be happier for them.

Ernestine, who came into care as a joey weighing 93g on the 23rd of October, last year, from Malvern East, now weighs a pleasing 715g. Henrietta, who came into care on the same day, a 72g orphan from South Morang, now weighs 680g. Followed by the tiny sisters, Beryl and Bernice, from Port Philip Animal Hospital, on the 3rd of November. When they came into care, Beryl weighed 61g, and Bernice weighed 67g, and they now weigh 600g and 622g, respectively.

They traveled to the Koala Clancy soft release site in their little blue basket, which also served as their hot day refuge, alongside a couple of bucket’s worth of their favourite browse, and some additional nest boxes. Our fourth ringtail soft release with Koala Clancy, in a location near to where we released Dante, Kitri, Norbert, and Norris last year, in the spring.

This past week, Ernestine, Henrietta, Beryl, and Bernice have been in our soft release enclosure at Koala Clancy, where they have been cared for by @koalaclancy members who have ensured they had fresh water, and introduced them to the local browse (a world of sugar gum! and more besides). Parked beneath a yellow gum, they’ve had the chance, our beloved quartet, to gently experience a different world of smells, sounds, and sights. They’ve made the journey from North Fitzroy, their urban home since they were orphaned joeys, to a plentiful place that backs onto the Brisbane Ranges National Park.

Around the trailer, we’ve tied up several ropes which mean they can get from tree to tree, without coming to ground, and reach several of the newly installed nest boxes, installed with the help of Janine, Roger, Peter, and Gloria. (Thank-you for all your boundless help and enthusiasm. The quartet are in the best of hands.)

As ever, in this transition period, we hope that we’ve provided them with enough opportunities to help them make the instinctual, confident leap into the wild world that awaits them.

Then, as now, we hope the trees sway about them in welcome.

Also looking for sugar gum green shoots, are the birds within our forthcoming artists’ book, Looking for green, remaining hopeful.

Comprised from a series of ten analogue postcard collages, with a green area akin to that on a map, and as such mirroring our own longing for green spaces to head towards, as well as a filmic green screen on which a potential environment more suited for a motley assortment of birds could sprout, this will be an edition of 75. It will be released into the wild at the tenth Melbourne Art Book Fair in the Great Hall, once more, come May.

Created using materials collected specifically for collage, and a palette of birds cut out in readiness many years previous, it came into being especially for World Book Night 2024 theme, In praise of birds. And so we have a Golden bowerbird alongside an extinct Carolina parakeet, and postcard locations from Sydney, Australia to Milan, Italy, all in celebration of birds. One of the original ten postcards, featuring said Carolina parakeet, was sent to organisers Sarah Bodman, Centre for Print Research (CFPR) and Linda Parr to be exhibited at Bower Ashton Library, UWE Bristol, UK (17th of April – 30th of June, 2024) and Learning Resources Centre, Hong Kong Design Institute (1st of September – 31st of October, 2024).

Our paws are crossed that of the many birds in this new work, extinct and from other parts of the world, our possums encounter a Fuscous honeyeater (Meliphaga fusca), but not a Northern hawk-owl (Surnia ulula). Our paws are crossed that they, having found their green, live long and strong. Hopeful.

(Cast your mind back to the previous World Book Night, We Remember, 2023.)

Image credit: American bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus), Common grasshopper warbler (Locustella naevia), Great white egret (Andea alba), Mourning warbler (Geothlypis Philadelphia), White-vented euphonia (Euphonia minuta), and a Yellow-crowned parrot (Amazona ochrocephala) within a postcard collage within a forthcoming artists’ book, Looking for green, remaining hopeful, 2024.