Into the night
Spring’s softest release
The little soft release trailer stands empty. On Saturday afternoon, we opened the hatch to the soft release enclosure, and wished the then current occupants, Bug and Helena, safe adventures. Unscrewing the lid, and easing a rope through the hole, we imparted, wordlessly, stay up high, little ones. Stay ever alert. Live a long life, and enjoy the texture of the thick bark beneath your paws. The following day we heard news they had vacated the trailer. They’d threaded out into the night, that keen and clever pair. Up into the embrace of the trees. To the connected canopy of bough after bough. Perhaps to their familiar nesting box we’d earlier secured to the tree nearest the enclosure. Who knows? Some leave quickly, some return often, as they find their way.
We now have the long wait until we next head to the site to see what footage the two night cameras we positioned around the outside of the enclosure have recorded. One camera, strapped to the tree nearest the enclosure, was directed towards the opening and the roof of the enclosure. The other was positioned to the side. With luck, one or both will have captured their first moments leaving the safety of the enclosure for the excitement, and different kind of safety, of the world beyond. Once the enclosure is open, outside of the enclosure becomes all the more so the place to be. Their senses must be pirouetting.
Once we confirm that Bug and Helena are no longer using the soft release enclosure as a base, it will be the turn of the next and final spring occupants, near identical siblings, Ed and Harriet. We’ll wheel the trailer to a different welcoming tree, with equally lovely horizontal arms ideal for first-time possum scampering. We’ll give the quartet space to reunite or go their separate ways, in the soft adjustment that is the period before summer’s heat. There’s plenty of space for either outcome.
So, as Ed and Harriet sample the local browse from Sutton Grange and in doing so become acquainted with what lies ahead, let’s have a look at the first pair of spring soft-release, big tree graduates, Bug and Helena, who enjoyed, as is a growing tradition, a celebratory grevillea before their momentous journey. Life’s big transitions are best that way.
From the safety of the soft release enclosure, Bug and Helena have had the chance, like those released before them, to sniff the wide, leafy world around them, to feast on their favourite local browse, and future favourite local browse. To find their paws beneath an eiderdown of (yet another spray of) flowering grevillea placed in their nesting box, the bookend to the previous day’s floral treat. To hear and smell who else might be nearby. To note the red gums, yellow box, red box, and more that they are now at liberty to scale up and munch upon. What do they see? What do they feel? How do they feel? I’d love to know.
Enjoy this footage of said duo, with a ‘wait for it’ moment at the tail.
In the lead up to opening the hatch, upon our journeys to the soft release site to observe their splendid wildness, we have checked the night camera footage and delighted in seeing Bug and Helena leaping and scurrying, clambering, and chomping on browse, at various intervals throughout the night. Two sets of bright eyes, the whoosh of wind, the rattle of the modified chook shed, these grainy captures mean so much. To our immense delight, but no surprise, the harvested footage revealed the ease with which they adjusted. Two healthy possums, they acclimatised so quickly.
With the help of Felicity and Peter, we installed five nesting boxes, custom built by Peter, around the site Bug and Helena have seamlessly, it feels, now become a part of, and inside each, we placed a little hand-knitted blanket, with thanks to Lynne. Between Ken checking on the possums on alternate days, Felicity and Peter, and Lynne, it really does take a village to return ringtails to the wild.
Officially releasing Bug and Helena on the day I turned 50 was magical and fitting. Returning to the site, with my parents, increasing the number of humans quietly involved in this journey-to-release, not to mention Bug’s initial plight called in to Wildlife Victoria, gladdens my heart. Here’s to their good life! Tiny, but mighty! The trees will love their presence.
Also pictured above and below, the awe of the nearby Metcalfe Cascades, and surrounds, and a Satin bowerbird (Ptilonorhynchus violaceus) who has fashioned a stage upon Openbook, the glossy quarterly of the State Library of New South Wales. We are delighted to see a collage detail from our artists’ book, With wings outstretched and quivering, 2021, on the cover of the spring edition, to promote the current exhibition, of which our work is a part, Paper Universe.
Paper Universe: The book as art
“Discover rare and beautiful works by leading contemporary artists, from the Library’s little-known collection of artists’ books.”
State Library of NSW
Until Sunday 3rd of May, 2026
Saturday might have been possum hatch opening day and my birthday all rolled into one, but Sunday was National Threatened Species Day. In the lead-up, this article ran in the CBD News.
New Metro Tunnel artwork raises awareness of threatened species
CBD News
27th of August, 2025
Read online
If you take a peek down Scott Alley off Degraves St as you go about your day in the CBD, you might notice a colourful —and wild — addition.
To coincide with Threatened Species Day on September 7, the Metro Tunnel Creative Program has unveiled a new artwork in Scott Alley — A fleeting sense of — by artists Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison. The digital collage seeks to raise aware-ness of threatened species in this work, which includes a pair of swift parrots, a southern greater glider, a brush-tailed rock wallaby, a family of eastern barred bandicoots and an “inspection” of Poolika (New Holland mouse). It includes images from the National Gallery and State Library collections, along with beautiful foil detail that can be seen from any part of the alley due to its UV reflection.
“We wanted to make the work (centred on) Threatened Species Day and around certain species — how different species might perceive the world. The foil is a playful interpretation of what it might be like to see UV light in the way parrots and various other birds can,” Haby said.
“It’s at the end of the alley, so we wanted a nice visual, an enticement that might draw you down the lane.”
Today more than 2000 species of plant, animal and ecological communities including more than 590 animals are officially listed as threatened. It’s a subject matter both Haby and Jennison deeply care about, as both artists and wildlife carers who run a wildlife shelter together. The two have been collaborating since 1999.
“The shelter is also our studio, and we see (making art and caring for wildlife) as one and the same,” Jennison said. “So, we’re trying to make work that’s about what all our individual roles are in reciprocating with nature, and that’s about the fact that we’re all interconnected in our responsibility to each other — non-human as well as human.”
“The different animals that we look after, they’ve taught us about seeing the world through their eyes … how to think about what plants they need to eat, and what shelter they need and how much water they need … all these sorts of connections … and we try to put all that into our work.”
“Hopefully we inspire people to think about what their role in a solution would be.”
The Metro Tunnel Creative Program curates artworks and events to enhance Melbourne city life alongside the construction of the city-shaping project. The focus of the program is to encourage community interaction with construction sites and support local businesses at the coalface between where site work and city life begins.
The Metro Tunnel is the biggest transformation of Melbourne’s rail network in more than 40 years and will free up capacity in the City Loop to run more trains more often across more lines.
Check out A fleeting sense of in Scott Alley now.
Image credit: Shanti Dave’s (b. 1931) Garv Gatha, circa 1950s, because maybe, just maybe, this is what Bug and Helena see from the canopy.
