Late October

With the soft-release hatch now open, Linus, Sylvie, and Lute are free to come and go as they please, as the abundance that is the collection of trail cam footage reveals, assures, and delights. From the first wide-eyed moments to investigating the camera strapped to a trunk, and finally making it to the nearest nest box, the speed with which they weave through the branches speaks to their homecoming. Some six-months since they came into care, seeing them wend their way with confidence, we couldn’t be happier for them; few endings in life are this bright, for both the possums and the joy it brings the two of us.

Watching them look out for each other, repeatedly checking in to see where the others are, sliding in tandem along those spindles of wattle, rendered a white tangle in the footage, before leaping across the canopy, by enviable spring, the next, or crashing about on the enclosure’s tin roof, all the while delighting in the extra space, sounds, and smells of the night, it lifts the spirits, and completes our chapter with them as well. Of the footage gathered, we can see their first more tentative steps rolling into the more confident fluidity of Ringtail, and note the patterns they formed as they mapped their surrounds. We might not know whether it was Linus or Sylvie or Lute who left the soft-release enclosure first, but it hardly matters. They are free to scale the tall, tall trees that encircle the soft-release enclosure before becoming one with all that surrounds them, and true to our pattern, as one group heads off, another is welcomed.

8th October, 2024
From 10.49pm

Our next quartet of Ringtail joeys, Ginni, Harry Houdini, and named after characters in The Australian Ballet’s Oscar©, Constance and Rose will one day follow in their paw-steps. Sadly, little rust-red Basil did not make it and he joined the big eucalypts in the sky.

Though smaller than we would have hoped, with the littlest weighing 62 grams upon arrival, Ginni, Houdini, Constance, and Rose continue to do well. They’ve bucked the ‘too tiny’ trend, and twirl around the branches in their indoor enclosure with ease and much curiosity. They are so small, at the beginning, all the more so when we think of Linus, Sylvie, and Lute squished plush in their nest box. And Linus, Sylvie, and Lute, too, go through something of a transformation of scale, reverting to looking small once more as they dance upon the roof of the soft-release enclosure, with their whole wild lives ahead.

Ginni, Houdini, Constance, and Rose, if all continues to travel well, will be ready for a 2025 summer/early autumn release at Koala Clancy. Joining them in our Tiny but Wild front room, of late, an echidna and a ringtail possum family, and another chance for us to quietly observe and learn.

Last week, a little 5-cent piece, named Ernest (for the spell we knew him, that is), rolled into our lives and we were able to transport him from Essendon Fields to Healesville Sanctuary, via a night in the dark and quiet of our front room. He dug into the towels, and wrapped them around him as if they were earth, and it was magical to be in his presence and to marvel at those ingenious quills and limbs, to say little of the energy-sensing beak (not unlike a platypus).

Every case affords us the chance to learn more, and, in the case of Ernest, read up on them, in addition to learning and putting into practice how best to handle them, and how best to transport them (they are notorious escape artists who once they’ve burrowed beneath a car seat can be quite tricky to dislodge). Echidnas use their snout as a snorkel in both fresh and salt water, and they are the only mammals known to have folded olfactory bulbs. As (conveniently, it transpires) read recently in Jack Ashby’s Platypus Matters, “inside their mouths, their lower jaws have been reduced to thin, slightly curved rods just a couple of millimetres thick. These probably don’t have a significant role in chewing — which is done entirely by the tongue — since the muscles are minute, but, uniquely, the jawbones open the miniature mouth by rotating along their length so the tongue can extend out. These bones may also be used in the transmission of sound from the earth to the ears, meaning that they listen with their jaws for prey in the soil.” Early taxidermy specimens often show the hind feet of an echidna orientated forward, and with their bellies flat on the ground, like a frog.

Unfortunately, Ernest’s x-rays revealed he had a bad fracture in his hind leg, and he had to be euthanised. Like Basil, he was treated with such love and care by the vets who tended to him. As the vets point out areas on the x-ray, and what looks like limbs that float in space in ingenious otherness, we transform ourselves as best we can into sponges, attempting to soak up all that is imparted.

A Thursday afternoon rescue of a ringtail possum stuck in an atrium followed suit and revealed not one but three surprises. Upon her tired body, and in her pouch, three little, healthy and red-furred joeys. For the duration of her stay with us, we’ve named her Juniper and her berry joeys, two male and one female.

Juniper and her berries are thankfully in good health and are now ready to be returned to their home after several nights of rest and eating well. As we clean their enclosure, it has been lovely to note their love for each other, as the joeys climb about her.

May this little family, like Linus, Sylvie, and Lute, lead lives as long as their marvellous tails.

In a full circle moment, and on the topic of monotremes, yesterday, as we walked through the Wombat State Forest, we encountered a healthy echidna. First we heard the echidna, as he or she scarpered to a safe nook below a fallen log concealed by browning ferns. Then we saw them, as they pointed their beak in the air. Followed by a distant crashing noise, in the direction they had appeared to sniff. And lo! a wallaby appeared, briefly, before disappearing in the density of the gentle valley. We stayed and watched the echidna, perfectly colour coordinated with their environment, from their soft chocolate face to their honeyed quills like the nearby egg and bacon plant in flower. If we hone in on the zoomed-in photos we took of the encounter, we can see them. Blurry and wonderful. If we look at those not zoomed in, they’ve disappeared into the scene they are integral to. As five crimson rosellas flew overhead, our walk in the forest, far enough from the main road, revealed how much we can see when we stand still and observe.

Additional images: Harriet Scott, The Australian Hedgehog [i.e. echidna] / (Echidna Hystrix), part of The Mammals of Australia, 1869, prints by Helena Forde and Harriet Scott; Box 10: Walkabout magazine: glass negatives, part of Australian National Travel Association’s Walkabout magazine: original photographs and associated records, 1934–1974; John Lewin’s Echidna Australian egg-laying monotramataus mammal, part of Collection of watercolours by John William Lewin: from the collection of William Bligh, 1807; taxidermy model auctioned at Christie’s; and Echidna x-ray photos, taken with permission, of dear Ernest-briefly.

The image component of our artists’ book, Restoring corridors, is currently on display at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, as part of the 2024 National Works on Paper exhibition.

2024 National Works on Paper
Until Sunday 24th November, 2024
Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery
Civic Reserve, Dunns Road, Mornington, Victoria
11am–4pm, Tuesday–Sunday
(Closed public holidays)

Vote for your favourite work in the 2024 National Works on Paper People’s Choice Award

Image credit: The soft-release site of Linus, Sylvie, and Lute, Staughton Vale