I was wondering what wildlife everyone has seen around the place, where do you live and what is common?
ME: We are on 4 acres about 45min from Melbourne, around us is basically farmland and a small town 5min down the road with the closest proper town about 8-10min away.
Wildlife: On our property we get frogs, caterpillars, kangaroo's, next doors cows , 'i'm fairly certain we've had possums, lots of mice & rats, rabbits, ducks, foxes and we think atleast 1 wombat but most recently we have had an echidna or echidna's showing up.
I googled and they don't generally live in groups so i'm wondering if it's the same echidna (pics on FB for anyone who's my friend).
A couple of weeks ago we were in the paddock and the dogs were going nuts in some long grass, we went to have a look and they had bailed up an echidna who was digging itself in, we tried to help the poor little thing out but he was digging in and not letting go.
The next day the dogs were going feral again but this time right at the driveway and sure enough here was an echidna, this time i got to him as he was trying to walk away, we flipped him into a big storage container and checked him out then took him into the paddock away from the dogs to release him.
Last night Jack (our dog) started barking again but it was dark and i couldn't see anything, go out today and he's going feral again only to find an echidna on the other side of the fence (near the main road) digging itself in, i tried to budge him and put it out of harms way but no joy as he dug in again.. so now it has me wondering if it's the same one.
I'm also intrested to hear what other people have seen and what you do if/when you see animals, i personally love to check them out, google them a bit and possibly have a bit of a cuddle (iof not dangerous etc) but i also understand that they are living creatures and where possible should NOT be taken outside of their environment and comfort zone.
Last weeks echidna was going to be attacked by our dogs so removing it and keeping it hidden for a few hours then releasing it was the best thing we could do for it.
I wish i could look after the poor little animals all the time, i want a pet kangaroo
At mum's we have wombats, kangaroos, bats (and they get into the house, the buggers!), snakes, lizards, echidnas, the odd wild pig/wild goat, owls, rosellas, black and white coc kies, eagles, rabbits, foxes.
A few years ago, mum's dog started digging a hole beside her kennel. It was weird, she was middle age and had never shown an interest in digging before. She was chained up at night and mum figured that she was beginning to protest against it by digging the hole. So every morning, mum would yell at her, show her the hole and the poor dog would come inside and sulk. A few days of this went on. Then one night we put the dog out and after a couple of hours she started to carry on a treat, barking. She never barked so we all ran out to see what was going on. Turned on the light and here was an echidna digging in the hole. The dog looked at mum like "SEE! I didn't do it!!!!" Mum felt terrible, but it was just so funny.
We get lots of kangaroos, rabbits, possums, snakes, lizards and heaps of ducks and birds including one beautiful kookaburra who lives in a tree next to the girls' cubbyhouse.
We live on an acre in a golf course estate, so we also get some pretty interesting "wildlife" on the golf course sometimes too - I wish someone would tell these gits that bright red trousers and shirts with yellow suspenders is NOT a good look!
lulu I can only imagine having a morning coffee and checking out the outrageous attire lol
I love the sound of having wildlife around like that! We get kookaburras and ****atoos and the occasional scrub turkey but that's all - too far into suburbia.
A friend of mine used to have a lovely backyard the backed up to a national park and she would get wallabies, kangaroos and pea****s - it was so awesome to see them hanging around.
Bit of a unique location here. Wildlife is something we have lots of....and that's even when you don't include the locals lol.
Snakes are a given, as are lizards (bearded dragons, geckos, skinks, frilled neck lizards) and a myriad of interesting and very dangerous insects (you wouldn't believe how many varieties of wasp there are...)
We have enough mice to populate the UK...though now it's snake season there's a few less.
Kangaroos and wallabies are local, but many of our 'locals' are traditional communities and kangaroo and wallaby tail is haute cuisine.
Possums
Bush rats
Goannas
Brumbies - it's breeding season and there's heaps of foals
Feral donkeys
Feral camels
cows....the properties here are so vast that there are random cows everywhere.
****atoos, wild budgies, finches, quails, the most amazing rosellas (ours are green and black), wild quarions, corellas, whistling kites
where we used to live we had bandicoots, maryvalley/qld
also a very tame possom, lots of feral things...cats, dogs, pigs. king parrots, echidnas, some awesome birds, we rescued a drongo bird. SO many frogs, so many, that you couldnt sleep cause they were so noisy, tree frogs, little ones, big green ones, cane toads...sometimes you literally couldnt walk outside at night cause of the bloody frogs!
at out new house, on the coast, we dont see as much, a few frogs, there are three black coc katoos that live right around us. love them.
We see possums, owls, bats, foxes, kangaroos, lizards, c0ckatoos, rosellas, kookaburras, rabbits and im sure other animals that i can't think of right now.
Most often we see kangaroos.....funny story actually one early morning i was walking to the bus stop and this was when i worked on the other side of canberra so had to catch a bus at 7am so i was still half asleep and i was walking up the road and i saw what i thought was a person running towards me (this was before i got my glasses so i was blind as a bat pretty much) and it turned out to be a kangaroo lol it really wasnt surprising as i live near a golf course which is also next to paddocks. But the strangest time i saw one was when i was 13 looking out the kitchen window at my mums and seeing one bound straight past my house.. she lives in suburbia while yes the suburb does back onto a nature reserve but not the side we lived on, she lives on a main street which is off one of the main drags in that side of canberra.
I get LOTS of bobtails (aka shinglebacks and a few other name, part of the blue tongue lizard family) here, snakes, kangaroos, many many different birds, foxes, rabbits, racehourse goannas, skinks, many different moths/bugs/etc, centrepeeds, bats, owls, possums, frogs, echidnas, eagles plus many many more I'm sure
Most of the time we see ducks, geese, pelicans, other birds, moths, butterflies, bugs. We have seen rabbits, foxes and frogs (we had two in our backyard). A girl around the corner has a minature australian horse/pony and we see her walk it from time to time (funny seeing a horse on the footpath, dodging bikes/skateboards etc...)
Ohh we get ducks on our dam
It's great to see what else is out there, has anyone had to deal with an injured animal?
I have vowed if i see a roo get hit or that is 'freshly' injured i will stop and check if it's ok, going to start keeping a spare old towel and some gloves in the car.
We've had a couple of stunned birds - mum has an old birdcage and she puts them in there until they come back to being with it. She's rescued a Joey once too, the mum had been hit by a car and the Joey, still mainly pink skinned, had crawled out. She wrapped it in a towel and took it to the local vet. Vets usually have contacts for wildlife carers.
We had a rejected calf once, she'd been brought into the world via c/s so the cow didn't take to it straight away. So much fun though, milking the cow and bottle feeding the calf. Took about three days and the cow accepted her.
Mainly copperhead snakes (some red bellies and might be some browns around), all types of lizards (lotsa blue tongues), kookaburras, rosellas (eastern and crimson), wedge-tailed eagles, diff varieties of ducks, kestrels, butcher birds, magpies, wombats (should have been at the top of my list because we have wombats friggin everywhere), echidnas, wallabies, DP has seen a roo or two, brush-tailed possums, I suspect some gliders (after seeing a teeny thing on a tree one night that def wasn't a brushy or a baby brushy), crayfish are known in the creek, as well as eels, owls and micro-bats.
The kids love it
We have a blue tongue lizard that lives in our front garden and suns himself on the front door everyday - there's also a baby blue tongue in the side garden.
There are heaps of birds incl black and white ****atoos. We had a baby magpie last week that seemed to have fallen out of its nest, but it had jumped into a bush and it's parents are looking after it there. I had to slow down a few weeks ago for a pea**** to cross the road.
DH rescued a turtle a couple of weeks ago that was trying to cross the road. DD loved it, mainly because it wee-eed on him! We see a few echidnas, heaps of wallabies and kangaroos. (DD is on kangaroo watch when we are driving at dusk)
Sometimes we can see whales too!
We get skinks in the house, occasional frogs and there has been a feathertailed glider as well (I retreated to the back bedroom that night as I discovered it on my bedside lamp and first thought was mouse!). And a bat one night that I had to go and get BIL to rescue me from as DH was at work.
Oh, we've ditched the white c*ckies in our move, and have the black ones here, from time to time, too!
How could I forget the frogs? You reminded me, Cally! We have a bazillion frogs (hence the snakes!) that sing us to sleep every night, because the cowshed is next to a dam, and there are streams from springs in the hills all around us, as well as the creek. It's my favourite thing about night, the frog-song - it's so loud, and I genuinely miss it when I spend the night anywhere else.
Mostly I see very fat, very healthy looking fruit-snatching possums.
Blue tongue lizards. We had a lovely one in the back garden but I think he escaped next door when they put the new fence up which is good because my little dog had started to harrass it
A koala wandering around my front garden.
Lots of birds - we have some big trees in the area - magpies, lorikeets, little nectar-eating things with yellow cheeks (hmm, not much of a birdwatcher am i?)
Every so often we get a Mumma and Papa duck taking a string of fluffy little duckling for a family outing up the street. Very cute.
There are snakes and rats in this burb but we've never seen them.
Oh, and we get owls that sound like dogs (barking owls?) and I think we also have a boobook from time to time.
I love duck families!
Koalas - we had a mama and baby coming through every couple of months, until only the baby started coming through. The horses are used to it hanging over them in the yard, and the koala is even used to our dogs at the base of the tree, waiting for it to fall out. Obviously, he never does!
Marydean, our owls include boobooks - weird sounding, huh?
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What Local Wildlife Do You See?
, 'i'm fairly certain we've had possums, lots of mice & rats, rabbits, ducks, foxes and we think atleast 1 wombat but most recently we have had an echidna or echidna's showing up.
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