HD Footage: Possum Interaction with Sound Lure

As a continuation of the recent experiment to record HD camera footage of the sound lure making brush tailed possum noises, with a concealment of the device inside a box, obscuring its view.    Last night activations have topped the previous night and we have seen similar levels of activity.

The first appearance from a mother and a juvenile took place between 9:21pm and 10:10 pm.   A male then appeared shortly afterwards before a smaller possum, quite possibly from earlier, spent time at the monitored site from 10:23pm until 10:30pm.   

This was followed by another male brush tailed possum who was present from 10:30pm until 10:37pm.   

 The juvenile then appeared for a minute, before the male appeared again followed by the female and the juvenile who were interacting.    The dark male appeared again at 10:55pm and left at 11:00pm before the female and juvenile appeared at 12:40am until 12:45am, making a final appearance at 1:57am  and were present at the recording site until 2:10am.    While there was only a small time between various possums viewing the footage makes it clear these were different animals and the only two who interacted were the adult female and the juvenile.

All in all there were ten distinct phases of activation from a minimum of what appeared to be at least four possums, a female and a juvenile and the two adult males, one which is clearly darker than the other.   This is consistent with the previous nights activities, although the number of activations has increased and there were seventy total activations/video footage.

The possum that jumps directly into the camera in this activation, returns to the site four minutes later and remains at the site and hears the sound lure activating several times, but continues to feed.

A summary of the activities from the evening has also seen the sound lure/bait station wrecked by possums dragging the boxes away, and showing interest with and interaction with the sound lure.   There is some evidence of adverse reaction, although this is limited (such as the possum jumping into the camera after an activation - however once this occurred the possum then returns to the site after a few seconds).   Clearly there were repeated activations when all (four) possums were at the site and they returned to the site repeatedly during the night.