Hoppy

A few years ago we had a Bennett's Wallaby visit our front yard looking for green grass in a hot dry summer. He only stayed a day before moving on and we haven't seen him since.

We recently added to our backyard wildlife list when we disturbed a Tasmanian Pademelon in the back garden. It seemed pretty unhappy to see us and we assumed it also left the next day. But a few weeks later we found some pademelon poo, then we found that some of our newly shooting grass had been nibbled down very low (it's hard to photograph grass close up)

and we also noticed some foot prints in the new grass patch

 
and the track where he hopped away after being disturbed.

We think he is hiding out in the thicket in the bottom corner of the garden. There are fresh signs of him every few days and we have had the occasional sighting (although he only comes out when it's almost dark so photographs have proven impossible so far). It also means the kids haven't seen him yet, much to their disappointment.

It really is great having wildlife like this in the middle of the suburbs and we would be happy for him to set up camp permanently. We will have to take some measures to protect the new grass until it gets established as apparently the young green grass is the yummiest stuff. We've started watering some of the established grass so that it also gets some tasty new growth. If the grass keeps getting munched it may take a few goes to get the cover that we want but we'll get there.

Getting ready for winter

Yes, we are still here but it's been hard to find time to write anything for the blog lately.

Winter will be with us soon and we use our open fire a lot. We had a few trees chopped down last year and the wood has been drying near our garage over the summer. I didn't take a "before" shot of all of the wood on the driveway but I did manage to dig up a photo from last December when we were netting the Mulberry tree. It's not that clear from the photo but there are two full rows of wood there.

The plan was to make our wood shed a bit more weather proof, then put all of the wood in the shed. This is the woodshed from behind as we were starting. First we put up some reinforcement mesh and tied it to the woodshed frame and the garage to give the back of the woodshed some more strength. We then measured out the black plastic that will make up the back wall.

This is the woodshed nearly finished. We used gaffer tape for some extra strength then nailed it to the garage and the posts - hopefully this lasts the distance. We also hooked the plastic to the roof of the woodshed so that the wood is completely protected from the winter rain.

Once it was finished we moved all of the wood into the shelter so that it stays dry over the winter.

And here is the driveway looking all nice and clean. While we were moving the heap I also discovered that chickens love to eat skinks. One of them would catch a skink then they would chase around fighting over it.

Skink

We get quite a lot of little skinks in our garden over the summer. They're not as common over the winter - unless you happen to pick up a piece of firewood that has one hiding inside it. This is one that we found when we brought some wood inside. Thankfully it avoided being inadvertently cremated and was released into our garden to eat some more insects.

Metallic Skink

It is a metallic skink which is apparently the most common lizard in Tasmania.

Kangy

Last Monday after lunch I took Sofia out for a walk in the pram to try to get her to nap (she didn't). When we were walking back up the driveway at home we disturbed a wallaby which hopped away across our front lawn. We were very lucky that it didn't just hop straight into the bushes but sat out and let Miranda take lots of photos and even some video.



Lots of people in Hobart have wallabies in their yard if they live further out or next to some bushland but it was a big surprise to see a wallaby in the middle of suburban Sandy Bay. Perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised, it's only a few hundred metres to a patch of bush near UTAS where I have seen wallabies and bettongs before.

Sofia was very excited by "Kangy" and a couple of times since has asked where Kangy is (she loves watching the video). We saw it again that evening, but haven't seen it since.  It has probably moved on, but we will keep an eye out for it.