friends

Willy Weavers

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My friend Christa doesn’t live in the bush, but on her rural suburban riverside block she observes an astonishing amount of fascinating natural phenomena.

The key is that she is keen to watch — and to wonder. Plus she takes great photos.

As her wildlife is often quite different to mine, she sees things I am not likely to. This one is so special I’ve asked her permission to share it with you.

She was drawing ‘immense pleasure’ from watching a pair of Willie Wagtails building a nest under the verandah roof outside her bedroom.  In fact, they would wake her up with their chirping and flurrying.  

To her surprise, she realised that they were using cobwebs as the main building material.

‘They arrive with threads wrapped around their heads, then wipe the head on the nest, all the while wriggling inside, checking for the right fit.’

‘They also use bits of grass and seem to put them on the inside. I think the nest grows about 1cm per day. By the weekend, it might be ready for eggs.’

But after the weekend Christa emailed the sad news. The Willie Wagtails had abandoned the nest on Saturday, after all that complex weaving.  

‘During the day, once or twice, they still defended the yard against crows and magpies. There was also a curious thing happening with two Willies. A larger one came and bullied the nest builder out of the nest, then briefly hopped inside it and left. Perhaps that bully is the reason for the now deserted nest. It still is a beautiful construction and I’m happy I could watch the process.’

To me, it looks almost like felting. And it is a great pity the Wagtails broke up before they could occupy it and start a family — but I warn all owner builders that this is a possible outcome!

Close encounters

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I have now completed a lattice gate to prevent the wallabies from coming onto the verandah and eating the plants from there.

A few do still come up the steps and nibble what they can reach from there, so the summer vine cover is not as advanced as it should be.

 

This one couldn’t be bothered climbing the steps, but for several hours the other warm day, while the shade lasted, lay right at the foot of the steps. As it happened to be a washing day, I went up and down the steps and past the lolling lass quite a few times. My stepping over her tail occasioned no more than a flick of an ear.

So far none of them have jumped over the gate, so I am enjoying my beautiful Crepuscule climbing rose, blooming in profusion along my verandah ‘windows’ once more, munched bare though it is from below.

One hump or two?

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My eyes did a double-take as I saw that my favourite rock seemed to have attracted an echoing rounded hump — spiky rather than spotty.

The lighter echidna, whom I’ve been calling Blondie, looked gingery-red this time, but I am not so intimate with these extraordinary creatures that I can be sure if it’s the same one. Perhaps it’s the spring colour fashion?

If it’s not Blondie, that would make three differently coloured echidnas who use my yard: a blonde, a brunette and a redhead. Like all the others, it was gleaming with health, glossy hairs shining amongst the bright spines.

Like all the others, it was a treat to watch, only about a metre from my verandah steps.

Flower roos

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Beneath the new green leaves of the birch trees, the fading yellow jonquils and Erlicheers and the fresh yellow and white daffodils — whose name I’ve forgotten — quietly clump and multiply and delight each year. The iris aren’t so prolific.

I was amused to see the kangaroo family choose this little grove of flowering bulbs for a munch and a snooze in the sun. They are quite delicate in eating the native grass between the bulbs without flattening much.

I am so grateful that they don’t fancy bulb leaves or flowers!

The joey had been asleep in the centre of the flowers, but popped up to peep over and check out the world as I watched. Not too tough a life in this refuge.

Getting to know echidnas

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The echidnas who poke about my yard seem to cope with any terrain, as I’ve shown you before — climbing fence stays, banks, logs, rocks and steps with ease.

They look awkward as they lumber along on their sturdy legs, but seem to have great balance, as you can see by the way this one lifts rear leg to use its special extended claw to scratch between the spines.

In the past, their spiny backs were what came to mind when I thought of echidnas. Now they share the yard and are frequently close by, I think of their furry legs as well, and their faces more, their cute ears and distinct eyelids.

And I am now very aware that their spines are not all straight bristles, the way a child would draw a hedgehog, but grow in distinctive patterns, rosettes on various body parts — like their tails.

Home — my outdoor learning centre.

Travelling with Mum

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Older joeys, so big they are jack-knifed into their mum’s pouch to fit at all, still get to ride in comfort when they like.

In this cold weather, they like.

This Eastern Grey Kangaroo mum keeps feeding along, levering her large back feet forward as needed with no regard for the small feet and head that are often in the way. It’s clearly the joey’s responsibility to move.

She’s doing enough, just giving him a ride in her fur-lined carrier bag and eating to keep up the milk supply.

Front paws on the ground, walking with her, the joey takes a nibble of grass now and then, but mostly he’s too busy investigating the world of his Mum’s travels. Ears pricked like a puppy, he is curious about everything, in every direction.

The Wallaby, Kangaroo and Wallaroo groups that live here are endlessly fascinating. Here’s a relevant extract from my 2007 book, The Woman on the Mountain, from Chapter 4, ‘An introduction to society’.  

My society is more macropod than human…

As any mother will tell you, life’s a lot easier before the kids become mobile. As the pouch-bound joey grows, it’s not unusual to see mother and joey eating in tandem, the big-eyed baby ‘practice grazing’ on what it can reach from the safety of the pouch as the mother slowly levers her way across the grass. If she stops and sits erect to check me out, the baby might withdraw until all I can see poking out are its black nose and eyes, ears hidden inside the furry parka hood of its mother’s pouch.

Bigger joeys, spending more and more time out of the pouch, each try their mother’s patience by interrupting her grazing to demand a drink of milk. When she decides that the guzzler has had enough, she pushes it aside and resumes grazing. At other times I see a mother holding her wriggling joey still with one dainty black paw while searching for fleas in the soft baby fur with the other. The joey cringes exactly like a child does when you want to wipe its face or comb its hair. ‘Aw, Mu-um!’

When the alarm goes up for the group to take flight, which they do in a very helter-skelter, every-wallaby-for-itself kind of way, these toddlers often rush to get back into the safety of their respective pouches, but it’s a terrible headfirst scramble and squeeze, and usually the mother takes off with a tangle of tail and long black feet and paws still hanging out. Or else the joey doesn’t notice her leaving, and when it suddenly becomes aware that it’s alone, goes hurtling off in any direction. Pure panic — just like any three-year-old in a department store who looks around and can’t see Mum. 

As they’re allowed to remain in the pouch for about ten months, they’re quite big by the time the mothers evict them. Only then will the females give birth to the babies they had waiting in the wings, so to speak. Even with new ones in the pouch, they still suckle the expelled older joeys until they are well over a year old. New and old joey have a special teat each, from which they receive custom-designed milk. How clever is that? 

Morning wallabies

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Early mornings are a good time for wallaby viewing as they move into the yard to catch the sun and start their day. Warming up and washing are essential first steps.

This mother and joey are combining the two as the sun rises above my eastern treeline. They looked like they were hugging but as it went on I realised it was mutual fur-cleaning — and maybe mutual affection too. Cute, eh?

But breakfast is also on the list of morning tasks, and in winter the wallabies go harder on all the plants in the yard as the grass growth slows down.

This young male decided to go for the jasmine vine, but all the lower section was stripped, so a standing breakfast it had to be.

After a while even that wasn’t enough, so he stretched up as far as possible and began pulling breakfast down to him.

Watching wallabies wash

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This mother and joey have claimed the bank outside my spare bedroom window as their patch. Mum lies there a lot in the warmth of the Autumn days, and the little one lounges inside, sometimes with its head out and one bent arm over the edge of the pouch, for all the world like a kid leaning out a window sill.

When she’s up, she can check out the territory for a good distance from this spot, before attending to daily duties, like the washing.

First she has to do the joey, who seems to submit more willingly than many kids do to a facecloth. I love the way its ears are so disproportionately big at this stage.

This joey is old enough to be useful, and can reach some of the awkward spots without even leaving the pouch. ‘Thanks, Mum. Your turn now; is this right?’

I know this is probably de-fleaing, but it looks so like a loving nuzzle that my heart melts as I watch. And just look at Mum’s lowered eyelashes. 

Other people go gooey over their pets; I can’t help being more than a little anthropomorphic around these creatures with whom I live. I don’t touch them or interfere with them, I just watch and walk amongst them, going about my own business, as they do with me — just another animal on this Refuge.

Mutual washing done, the joey is left to finish its own ablutions. Ears up, doesn’t it look  like a Bilby?

Meanwhile Mum keeps watch, although there’s nothing here to fear. Randy males are more likely what she’s on the alert for; they can make nuisances of themselves.

Sharing territory

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Two echidnas have been aerating my house yard grass as thoroughly as I imagine gophers must, if you go by the complaints of U.S. rural gardeners. It doesn’t bother me, as I don’t have a lawn, but a part-mown, part-grazed paddock. I have never seen the echidnas less than about 10 metres apart, and there seems to be no acknowledgment of each other’s presence.

Late one afternoon I spotted one of them standing up to lever the bark off a firewood log. That was worthy of a photo, looking so suddenly tall, an anthropomorphic cartoon character who ought to be wearing a vest.

Then I noticed he was rolling the log as he did so, to get it all off and uncover any secretive supper treats.

I’d gone up on to the bank above him to get a better view; that’s when I noticed the other echidna barrelling towards us. The wood-echidna (bottom left hand) left his log and began to head out to the open grass.

 It was as if he wanted to put the competitor off the track, after all the work he’d been doing to remove the bark. The intruder, undeterred, was making straight for this direction.

I was fascinated to see what happened when they got close to each other. Both moving fast, they passed so close they almost touched, but wood-echidna gave no sign of noticing. Intruder echidna turned its head and gave a perfunctory sniff at the rear that passed by. But that was all.

Hardly a greeting, and total poker-faced bluffing on my wood-echidna’s part. Was it a tacit way of sharing the goodies or avoiding a fight?

Echidna close-ups

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I love to see echidnas almost daily in the yard, and that they are starting to ignore me when I walk past a few feet away.

But sometimes I curse their night’s work. The earth bank is an easy target for them to poke their snouts into, but  I slip on the stones they dislodge onto my brick steps! They are effectively burying them.

But I don’t curse for long — unless I do actually slip. They are far too interesting and far too cute. I get to see them from all aspects except underneath, but they are never still for long. They do a surprisingly swift waddle!

Their faces I can catch by sitting still as they approach.

But I was fascinated to see this close-up of an echidna’s rear. It’s not one of my resident echidnas: this great shot was taken by web visitor Darian Zam — thanks, Darian!  

The tail always looks like a strange extension, rather like an emu’s, I have thought.  Or an overly-gelled ducktail hairstyle. I’d imagined the symmetrical spiky end whorls would overhang the actual anus, but this shows otherwise.

Constantly surprising creatures

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I had never thought of echidnas as climbing creatures. I had seen them ‘walk’ up banks so they looked as if they were climbing, but this one was indisputably climbing up a fence post stay.

Definitely above ground, it was sticking its nose in under the loose bark, flipping it aside and, I assume, finding lunch. It only stopped where the bark ended.

But then this echidna has surprised me before in that its spines are so light-coloured — this is The Blonde.

But I also have an Eastern Rednecked wallaby (left) and young visiting here at present that both have very fair haunches, not red or grey. Blonde highlights?

Not to be outdone, another less glamorous but perhaps more adventurous wallaby was spotted (right) climbing on the rocks to reach the Chinese Jasmine. Perhaps this is the one who likes to climb up my steps?

Skink family?

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Two of the skinks who adorn my verandah and surrounds were enjoying a steamy break between rain storms. There is a smaller one too but it’s very lively and rarely ‘basks’. You know what kids are like.

Given that I’d only photographed and posted on them a few weeks ago (‘My special skinks’), I thought they looked different. More rounded, fatter, especially the one on the left.

Comparing those two sets of photographs, she definitely is. Now does this mean she is pregnant or have they both just shared a large meal and she got most of it?

And will you just look at those amazing toes?!