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Speaking of Australia, check out our visitor yesterday 🐍 I've added a video of my dad handfeeding a possum, but I'll delete soon


chocolate-chip chooky
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8 minutes ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

Oh, I'm sorry. 

There is a cute possum video, at the bottom of page 2.

I'm sorry chocolate-chip chooky.  That sounded much testier in print when I re-read it; I meant why the heck did I think....  No harm, no foul, and I'll go look up the video. 

Obviously I didn't read the whole thread, because so. many. snake. stories.  Shudder.    I have a fondness for oppossums though. They use the top of my lovely backyard fence as a super-highway, and someday I hope to meet one who isn't scared to death of me suddenly appearing in the night as I'm walking the dog.  

 

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@chocolate-chip chooky (or someone)…what kind of chicken (or rooster?) is this….that large one that looks like your avatar? Is it the same kind as the one in your avatar? Our new neighbors have six chickens and they are spending a lot of time right at my front door! Please don’t quote the photo!!!!

 

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1 hour ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

My dad hand-feeds a family of possums that live in their garage. This possum family has had several babies, and they even let my dad hand feed the babies.

Possums are very common in urban areas.

I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who comes across possums, though.

I'll post a video, but I'll delete after a bit, for privacy.

 

NOOOOO! I missed it!!!!  😞 

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3 hours ago, lewelma said:

We have the Kea!  Beware your car!  This alpine parrot likes to pick the rubber off of the outside of your vehicle while you are out for a nice walk in the park. 

They're really neat birds, though :). 

L is particularly partial to the Tui. They have such an interesting range of sounds. 

 

 

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That is really cool @chocolate-chip chooky (the snake, I didn't see the possum video).

I lived in the bush growing up, in south west WA where snakes are plentiful but only saw about 5 in my whole childhood! My first in the wild carpet python was this year, my son and husband found it when climbing some rocks, they abandoned the rock climbing but I had to go up and have a look.

I did see about 6700 snakes when on a long hike a few years ago. Mostly dugites and tigers which would sliver away when they heard us coming. Once we were being a little too quite and unobservant though and we missed one until it come in between two of us on the track rearing up and hissing, that was the only time I've been scared of a snake.

 

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13 minutes ago, Baseballandhockey said:

Are they the same possums and invasive or do you have different possums? 

They were brought into NZ in 1937 from Australia to create a fur trade. They hiked breeding pairs deep into the native bush all over NZ in both the North and South Island. They eat our native trees and outcompete our native birds for food. They eat the eggs, they eat the chicks, they even eat our native insects like the weta. They are just horrible. NZ has a massive kill program where they drop 1080 from the sky which kills all mammals, and lucky for NZ, there are no mammals in our forests that we want. As in NONE. So we just kill them all. Possums, rats, stoats, pigs, deer, etc. Possums are a horrible horrible pest and are deep inside our most precious national parks. NZ wants them ALL dead. 

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I love opossums.  The US kind.   I used to volunteer at a zoo and we had an opossum that had been rescued when mom was hit by a car and hand-raised.  She as a sweetheart and I loved holding her.  She'd sit with her head on your shoulder like you'd hold a baby, with one hand under her butt and she'd wrap her prehensile tail around your arm, then snuggle into your neck/under your hair.   

I did see someone try to pet her under her chin (maybe they were letting her smell their hand, IDK) and get bit.  They have a mouth full of really really sharp teeth.  It was like a finger full of needle pricks.   But she never bit anyone else that I know of.

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19 minutes ago, lewelma said:

Nope. Just a bat!  And it just won the Bird of the Year contest!  LOL.

 

And aquatic mammals, like sea lions and dolphins. 

 

NZ ecology is really special. We had a chance to visit the Orokuni refuge, and it is just totally unlike anywhere else I've ever been. 

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On 11/13/2021 at 12:09 PM, WildflowerMom said:

Thanks, I hate it.  
😆


says the girl who lives in the land of gators and snakes.  

I'm on a snake identification group on facebook, and it's a bit startling the percentage of photos posted that are from Florida, lol. 

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3 hours ago, ktgrok said:

I'm on a snake identification group on facebook, and it's a bit startling the percentage of photos posted that are from Florida, lol. 

Yes I’ve contributed a few photos to that group myself.  I’m near a swamp and snakes and gators are just a way of life down south.  But I still hate venomous ones.  I don’t mess with them, but I give them a mean evil eye. 😆.   The others are perfectly welcome around me.  In our old house, we even had an indigo who lived in the field with his gopher tortoise friend.   He was gigantic.  

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3 hours ago, ktgrok said:

I'm on a snake identification group on facebook, and it's a bit startling the percentage of photos posted that are from Florida, lol. 

Part of that is that Florida is the single place in North America where there is a 50/50 that you'll run into a happy, thriving snake from Asia or South America vs something native to this continent. Especially S. Fl. It makes identification more difficult when "well, it can't be an X, they don't live here" isn't necessarily so. 

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44 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

Part of that is that Florida is the single place in North America where there is a 50/50 that you'll run into a happy, thriving snake from Asia or South America vs something native to this continent. Especially S. Fl. It makes identification more difficult when "well, it can't be an X, they don't live here" isn't necessarily so. 

I've actually never seen a non native snake, and in the group we only get a very few - usually ball python or corn snake variations that are someone's lost pet. Now, out in the everglades I know there are a lot, but they seem to be avoiding people pretty well, sadly. 

Iguanas..those I've seen, when I was further south. 

 

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