Update on the Possum

I've been editing a lot lately. Luckily I get to do it all from my lounge room. That means that as a file exports I get to hang with Mooncar and Possum.

We've been working with Possum to get him finger-tame and comfortable with being moved between perches. Well, last night we decided he'd made more than enough progress to try him outside the cage. Now, as with his forefathers, he's been in a cage all his life and didn't really like the idea of going anywhere near those big wide open spaces. So after 2 hours of trying to move him to the cage door and having him fly back to a 'safe' perch or even just leaving the cage open and waiting for him to emerge. I finally decided that I'd coerce him into the experience, ie. when he happily jumped onto my finger I just curled my hand around him and before he knew it he was out in the big wide world.

He blinked a couple of times and flew off on a mad dash around the house. Although we were of course a little scared for him, precision flying for a cage bird is not a strong suit at the best of times, he screamed around the corners of the lounge room, projectile pooping as he went, he softly bounced off a few walls, and then with all the grace of an elephant on ice skates 'landed' on the fig tree next to our couch. No worse for wear.

After happily jumping back onto our fingers and repeating the mad escapade (that's escapade not elephant ice-capade), which included one brilliant antic of trying to land on a bookshelf, somewhat missing and disappearing down the back only to emerge at the bottom with a look on his face of 'meant to do that', He calmed down and started just hanging out with us. Well, mainly the fig tree but also us. As can be evidenced by this shot of him posing on Mooncars shoulder.

He's always much better on the first night he tries something so we expect there will be a lot more fuss and pooping tonight when we try and put him back in the cage but, hey, at least he's out and about now.