At last light, a silhouette detaches itself from the shadows on the roof. It is round and fuzzy, with a tail curled into a comma at the tip. It clambers on to the power line and trundles along until it reaches the trees. Parking its fluffy backside on a branch, it starts on the ripening fruit that will never make it to my kitchen.
My guest is a coppery brushtail possum, the blinged-up tropical cousin of the common brushtail possum so familiar in cities. Although I rarely see it, the possum makes itself known. The heavy footfall shifting between march and gallop. The scrabbling as it squeezes into impossibly small spaces. And the staccato hisses and growls when it runs into a rival. Brushies might tolerate humans in their territories, but they draw the line at other possums.
