wallabies

Drying out

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It had rained for days, and when it wasn’t raining it was damp and grey and cold. Miserable, in fact. The hillsides were oozing and the track was a running stream.

But just as dry firewood was becoming a concern, this day threw a final heavy shower at the mountain and then the sun came out.

The wallabies had clearly been even worse off than I was, out there in the long wet tussocks. This isn’t cave country to offer dry shelters, so I expect they must just endure such weather.

Their fur is thick but the top layer at least was looking very bedraggled as they sat about, drying off and dozing in the warmth.

While this mother (left) dried off, she was busy cleaning up her joey, who’d been kept safely cosy and dry in the best place for a joey to be — mum’s pouch.

Wallabies at home

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The wallabies took very little time to adjust to my moving back in to their domain. There are lots of mothers carrying young in pouches. Some of the joeys are very small and pink, and some, like this one, are really too big.

It is so cramped in that low-hanging pouch that you can see that its hind foot is protruding, but it stayed inside where it was warm. After all, it could reach grass and milk from there, so why not?

The mothers seem most trusting of me. Some of the others look at me quite imperiously, ears pricked, as if to say, ‘ So who are you, and what is your business here?!’ 

I have no idea why they haven’t eaten these self sown greens — as they hop in and eat the parsley in this old tank that I need to fill to be a raised bed for root vegies. Unfortunately, since it’s really a compost heap at this stage, a red-bellied black snake moved in at the end of last summer.

But if I can overcome my disappointment in the wide range of my once-treasured garden plants they are eating, they are a treat to have around to watch.

Only… I just noticed that they have started on the citrus trees! Now that’s going too far.

Return to Wallaby World

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Home on the mountain at last, I was greeted by a heavily pruned garden ruled by wallabies.

Of course it was lovely to see the wallabies, but… they have been eating plants I had never expected to appeal to their taste buds. Strongly aromatic plants like rosemary and lavender have been stripped, and are regularly re-stripped. I had struck lots of lavender cuttings, thinking that I’d at least be able to have those in this new wallaby world.

They are not eating the bulbs, the jonquils or snowflakes — yet — and they can’t reach the wattles, so I do have some flowers. But they are now attacking my camellias, all of which are low enough to be totally munched into nothing but stems.

I had accepted that roses are no longer anything but sticks, except for the very tops of the taller shrub roses.

However, in one of these, the defoliation has revealed two nests, one small lichened cup and one large grassy tunnel. They are old ones, I assume, but I wonder if any tenants will return, now they are so exposed to predators?

Cuter than coal

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About 80 km south-west of Bowen in Queensland is the historic mining town of Collinsville. They’re proud of their strong coalmining and union past here — as the saga of underground strikes and fatal accidents and protest convoys to Brisbane attests. I know this from the coal museum and their interesting online history site.

But the old underground mining methods and the mateship ways ended in the 1990s; now the Collinsville mine is a vast opencut and most of the workers come from outside the area, do their 12-hour shifts for four days, then go home to their families on the coast.

Just west of Collinsville is the tiny village of Scottsville. Here I am to stay with Carol and Vince Cosentino at Wurra Yumba — Kangaroo House — who have a very pleasant accommodation building in their garden, which really belongs to a menagerie of rescued wildlife on the mend.

It is often used by backpackers, whom I imagine would be fascinated by Carol’s varying ages and breeds of wallaby joeys, all with large and thoughtfully planned play areas and with their own night-time racks of colourful sling bag/pouches.

Before I leave in the morning I watch Carol give the morning feed to this appealing group of young Pretty-face Wallabies who had slept — slung — just outside my door. As you can see, she can always use an extra pair of hands!  When the slower ones emerge for breakfast, she has to use her knees as well as hands to hold the bottles.

This is merely one of many groups. Carol gets no funding for her rescue and rehabilitation work, which includes birds as well as other mammals. Feed and formula bills are huge, let alone all the incidentals, and the constant restructuring of the space to better cater for her charges’ needs. Husband Vince helps with the latter work, while donations for the occasional accommodation might cover the tonnes of tissues Carol must use, from what I saw!

You can reach Carol at Wurra Yumba on 07 4785 5497 or visit her website.

But it is actually Carol’s village of Scottsville that is closest to the Collinsville opencut mine.

At night, a drive along a hilltop road revealed how huge this mine is, or so I thought; but satellite maps show me it is far bigger.

And the newer Sonoma mine is far too close as well. There has been a coal-fired power station here since 1976, and with what I know from the Hunter, the combination does not augur well for the health of Scottsville and Collinsville residents.

Their place — and mine

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Out in the real forest it is always a matter of double-take with our cleverly camouflaged creatures; I think I see a dark shadow sway, a tree trunk bend. Kangaroo? Wallaroo? One blink and they might be gone.

As majestic as the trees that give them cover, this is how I best like to see them.

But now that my house yard is their territory too, I get different, more domestic views of my macropod neighbours. In the early mornings, as the sun begins to soak up the dew and highlight the trees, it now also picks out fluffy ears, closed sundrowsing eyes, busily feeding backs, and the many babies, cosily enpouched or skittishly out-pouched.

These red-necked wallabies rule of a morning; the kangaroo and the wallaroo families visit mostly at dusk.

Tenants-in-common

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Now that all the Refuge animals have free run of my house yard, it’s been interesting to see the sharing arrangements develop, both with me as the sole human, and with the other, better adapted, species.

Eastern red-necked wallabies have the majority, as this small gang of young bloods shows.

But they are an amiable breed, and co-exist happily with anyone else, even me. This wallaby with the itchy tummy is almost overbalancing as he scratches, with no thought of the echidna that trundles past, intent on its own business.

I have learnt that minding one’s own business is the key for my survival here too — not that interfering with an echidna would be on my mind!

Joey steps

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My house wallaby’s joey is venturing more than its head out now. From the low-slung safety and warmth of the pouch, it projects its front legs and paws, touching the grass.

Big soft ears turning, nose sniffing, eyes  alert, our joey is growing up fast. Its fur is still fine, not enough to keep it warm in these 10-14 degree autumn days. On the cusp of babyhood, it has the best of both inside and outside worlds, able to try touch and taste, but retreat to snooze, suckle and be safe.

I am always astonished at how big the joeys are when their mothers continue to allow them to ride in the pouch. This one has a way to grow yet the pouch is barely clearing the ground now. Tussock country can’t be easy with a gangly joey swinging below.

Wallaby world

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It hasn’t taken long for the wallabies to make themselves at home in the house yard. The roses are the main feeding attraction, with them stripping all the smaller bushes, and making considerable effort to reach up and pull down the stems of higher ones, like the old shrub rose, Autumnalis, and the Banksia Rose.

Thorns don’t appear to bother either their little paws or their mouths.

I still can’t see any reduction in the height of the grass.

The other quickly-acquired daily habit is occupying shady spots– one each, probably claimed and kept. The shade may be quite small, from a single shrub, or from man-made objects like the barbeque.

Certain regulars are becoming identifiable, like the one with the tattered left ear or the very reddish-tinged male, or the little mother who plops next to the mud wall for mid-day shade. She is now letting me walk past without feeling the need to up and run.

I do like seeing them so relaxed when I am about, and I am learning to unclench my teeth and be more relaxed myself when I see them eating the roses — or the Robinia — or the Buddleia — or the grapevines. A new era, I keep telling myself, and I chose it. So get used to it and enjoy!

Giving up the garden

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Lately, with the aytpically tropical afternoon storms and heat, the grass had been growing at such a rate that I couldn’t keep up with it. I had to wait until afternoon before it was dry enough to mow and by then it would be raining again.

A bout of illness which took away any energy to seize mowing opportunities sealed my decision. I needed help.

Life is a compromise and I was about to make a big one. In essence, bugger the roses, come in and eat my grass!
One late afternoon I opened all four gates into the house yard. You will not have your wallaby photos obscured by netting from now on.
Slowly they ventured in. Wallabies first. The wallaroo looked on disapprovingly from outside the fence, where he stayed. Kangaroos are coming in too, but not close yet.
Soon they were everywhere, and over the next few days some began to rest inside the yard, using the shade of buildings and trees during the day. Some were more calm than others, some staying still as I walked past, others bolting in panic.
I immediately cleaned some strategic windows so I could take photos, like this laid-back wallaby. I enjoy observing the process of familiarisation. This is a new era of living here for me — and my neighbours.

It was actually a great relief to have given up the struggle to maintain the yard in a manner for which I have no time – but I have to take deep breaths as I watch them stripping the roses!

Just leave the citrus alone please — I silently beg, hoping they appreciate the spirit of compromise under which I have done this.

Biffo boys

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In my wallaby world, there’s been a fair amount of girl-chasing going on lately, and as there always seems to be a lot of competition amongst the males for a female on heat, inevitably that leads to arguments.
These two males were in a group that was following a young female down the hill past my yard. For some reason — a muttered slight on the lady’s honour or the the rival’s virility? — they broke off the pursuit and began fighting.
Their necks look vulnerable in the position they assume, but it must be against the rules to go for the throat. The pair of them kept it up as they danced through the tussocks, turning and tumbling down the slope to the gully, out of my sight.

So I don’t know who won — the fight or the fair maid!

New wallaby breed?

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On a recent damp day, as the wallabies grazed past the house fence, one female seemed to have a light stripe across the nose.
They have a whitish stripe on their cheeks, and this can be more distinct on some than others, but I’d never seen a horizontal stripe.

Was it a scar, or did I have a variation on the breed of red-necked wallaby?
After watching for a while as she fed and bent up and down and scratched and twisted about, I fetched the camera to zoom closer and try to determine if it was a scar or no.

Actually, it looked like a band-aid!
Closer still, it was revealed as a dead leaf — a damp dead leaf, pasted firmly across her nose by the rain.

Wallaby charmers

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The dainty Red-necked Wallabies are my most common marsupial here, and I daily see small groups grazing along the yard fence line, not far from my verandah. When I appear, they usually look up to see what I’m doing, then it’s heads back down to resume eating.

As you can see, the amount of red they have on their grey fur varies quite a lot. Here’s a young male (above, left) and a female with a joey in her pouch.
Often the Red-necked Wallaby mothers that I see here seem far too small to be mothers. By the time the joey is old enough to stay out of the pouch it is nearly as big as its mum. This one (left) wasn’t venturing out today but it was leaning out and doing a bit of practice grazing.

The male kept interrupting his grazing to deal with something itchy — fleas, ticks, leeches? — twisting round to reach the spots with his mouth as well as his neat front paws. I doubt he could reach his tail, but he was very flexible — and determined — so who knows?