A week or so ago on a calm, dark night, I went outside for some reason and heard the rustle of leaves in the blue gums along the path between the shed and the toilet.

Being a curious bloke, I grabbed the torch and crept slowly to about where I’d heard the noise and pointed up to see a furry little fellow. It looked like we have Common Brushtail Possums on our property, which are listed as “rare” by the Department for Environment and Heritage.

Tonight I heard the distinctive rustle again and quietly returned to the shed to put the camera together.

Using the Canon 28-70mm f2.8L lens with the Speedlite 550EX flash for starters, I used the torch to identify the general area that the possums were in before clicking off a few shots. Shooting directly up into the branches was a bit of a stretch for me, and after using the torch I couldn’t see anything through the view finder as my eyes didn’t adjust in time to the pitch black, moonless sky.

It must have looked quite interesting from the neighbours place across the hillside, with the trees occasionally lighting up from the powerful flash!

I changed to the Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L to try and get a bit closer and this greatly increased the level of difficulty of getting the possum in frame, but the shots that I did get were much better.

I think that it is interesting that the possums were eating the blue gum blossoms and not the box mistletoe that I’ve been told is their food source. There is plenty of mistletoe around, although we have been slowly reducing it by selectively pruning with both chainsaw and rope saw.

Possums are meant to be quite rare in the Clare Valley area. I’ve read that the average is down to one per hectare, the lowest in the area including the Yorke Peninsula and the Mid North and I’d wondered where and when we would see one – we should have more than 40 on our property.

While many people don’t like them, I haven’t seen evidence of them in the vegie garden yet, so as long as they stay in the trees then maybe we can just get along together.

Check more info with the Dept of Environment and Heritage Fact Sheet