Saving Possum

Friday 6 March
AH and I potter into Sydney town & check out the Hyde Park Barracks, which is now a museum.
By 3PM I really need some lunch and the cafe there closes at 3. I suggest we go to the little place opposite the NSW Art Gallery - get a coffee & salad roll. On the way down Art Gallery Road, AH says, "what's that?" and spotted next to a large Ficus Hillii (fig) what we thought to be a rat but realised it was a very, very young ring-tailed possum, the size of a little guinea pig.
It was just sitting there, unafraid, enjoying a forage and munch on the fig fruits...

Fortunately there was gardener nearby and I brought him over & asked him to call a ranger to take care of the little one. The ranger was there in under 10 minutes. The gardener asked for us to stay with the possum, which was a good thing as I had to ask 2 people who stopped to see to please not use their camera flashes.
Then it occurred to me that I had a camera in my bag that would not need a flash to get a record of a really cute little creature.

Finally to the little snack bar for very good coffee and a salad roll.
Other native animals we saw or heard that afternoon were; Kookaburras, Sacred Ibis, Rainbow Lorikeets, Little Corellas, Sulphur Crested Cockatoos, Little Cormorant...

We popped into the the NSW Art Gallery and had a look at the 1600-1800s Korean paintings (Joseon Dynasty) - fabulous - there's some amazing surrealist looking pieces, 200 year older than the Surrealists we all know about (not quite the images I saw but the only samples I could find):




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(possum image copyright Anne Bentley)