Thanks for letting me know about these incorrect pictures, although it has already been pointed out to me. That resulted in a new blog post with proper Australian possums in it. You can read that one here …..

Possums and Opossums

I’m going to make a short update to the post in a minute to explain that.

As for waiting 20 years for those trees to grow, for a man my age, that’s cutting it a little fine. I’ll have to settle for seeing koalas at North Stradbroke Island or in other peoples back gardens.

Funnily enough, I do have a corrugated metal roof and I have heard that sound. About three o’clock in the morning mostly, frightened the life out of me at first! You’re right, they have unusually heavy feet the such small creatures. They should learn from cats.

Cheers!

Bob

Flickr’s Creative Commons search tool will show you more correct picture candidates to use if you use ‘brushtail possum’ as keywords. eg: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=brushtail+possum&l=4

Sarah’s comment of planting more native trees and bushes is worth following up on if you want to attract and keep Possums in your area. There’s a variety of flowering and quick growing native bushes that will attract native birds and other fauna, which will also attract possums.

To answer your question though, it’s unlikely (in the extreme) that you’d attract Koalas unless you plant the specific trees they like, AND wait the 20-odd years it’d take to grow, plus it’s unlikely there’s any nearby to attract – unless you happen to be right up against a national park or similar.
Possums, however, are adaptable and prolific and even live in the central parks in Sydney.

Possums can, though, become a nuisance – they like nesting in hollowed out trees. Failing that – the roof cavity of your home will also do just fine if there’s any minute gap they can fit through.

If you’ve got a corrugated metal roof, you’ll likely notice their presence immediately. It’ll sound as though an entire herd of elephants are playing rugby on the roof. Seriously, for such a small creature they really do have disproportionately large footsteps.
Once we had a small family of four or five possums playing and fighting on the roof one night for long enough that I had to go outside, grab the hose, and drive them off to get any sleep.

Good luck.

Seriously though, I may well do that, it’d be nice to get my possum (or any possum) back.

Yes, I’m afraid America has an ugly possum problem.

I’m afraid I haven’t heard the delicate sound of my possum lately, I’ve got a feeling he has moved on to somewhere else. I suppose there is one advantage to that, I get to keep all of my peanut butter for myself!

Got to say, I miss him though.

Cheers!

I warn you though, once they start appreciating your culinary offerings they can be hard to get rid of. Be careful about getting too close , too. The same applies to any wild animal, but the claws of a brushtailed possum can do real damage, and their teeth can take the end of your finger off.

It is comforting to know that the possums I have in my garden are probably cuter than the ones shown here. I got these images from Flickr under a creative Commons license, so it is very likely they are American.

What I’d really like to do is take a photograph of my very own Possum family in my own garden. Any tips on how I can lure them into view?

There is a variety of possums that it could have been but the most common in brisbane yard is the brushtail possum, some are almost a creamy colour. We have them living in our laundry, and they like to eat the apple we give them.

This is pictures of the brushtail possum
http://images.google.com.au/images?hl=en&q=brushtail%20possums&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

this is sugar gliders, they are small with black and white face
http://images.google.com.au/images?hl=en&um=1&sa=1&q=australian+gliders&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=