19.12.15

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.