Settling Down - February 2007Dad and Junior are flying all over the place leaving mother behind. She climbs to the highest tree in our garden to look out for them, quite frustrated that she cannot join them. Most of the time they are not far off. She does not have a mobile phone so she just screeches with an almighty sound and they come home. Pretty much like my mother did.  Sometimes Mum just cant stand the frustration any more and she would jump the fence into the 32 acre park behind our house following her family. How does she get over the fence if she can't fly? She climbs a tree next to the six foot fence and then literally drops down resulting in what must be a painful landing - a price she is willing to pay for freedom. She quickly runs to a clump of trees and then uses her strong beak and claws to climb a tree where she would be joined by Dad and Junior. As long as she stays up in the trees, she is safe. On the ground she is vulnerable - and that worries us. It is a quiet park but people walk their dogs in the park so we hope she gets high quickly. At sunset the whole family is back in the yard. How does she get back in? A small gap under the fence is big enough for her. In the picture below, Mom & Dad are getting ready for bed for the night. Notice how they fluff out their feathers to cover their feet - almost like putting on a blanket to stay nice and warm while sleeping.  As one of the readers of this web page remarked: "A beautiful love story about a cockatoo with only one wing and her prince in shining feathers who fell in love and asked for her wing in marriage". Well so far they look like they are also "Living happily ever after". The family is still together. Just because the "baby" can now fly around and looks as big as his dad does not take away from the fact that he is not even six months old and they easily live to 100 years! So even in human years, he is very much still a baby. He squeals like one too - mostly when he would like his parents to feed him. He then gets a mouth-to-mouth food transfer while mom or dad shake like mad to get the food down his throat. Come on, have a guess - which bird is which in the photo below? To help you, a few tips: Mothers are always the centre of the universe, kids always think they are right and the third one, by default, must be Dad!  They share the backyard with many other native birds. The kookaburra's laugh adds colour to the sounds in the neighbourhood and they are tame enough to take food from your hand - minced meat.    
Only a few suburbs have free koalas. Dogs and cars inflicted a heavy toll amongst them and developers have cut down their trees to build homes, shopping centres and golf courses. People fight fiercely to protect the few remaining habitats in the suburbs. It cost one state government an election because they planned to build a road through a koala habitat. You are indeed honoured if you have a koala living up a tree in your backyard. We don't. Koalas are marsupial mammals which means that, like kangaroos, the mothers have pouches for carrying their babies - much more convenient than strollers. Unlike kangaroos, the koala's pouch faces downwards. That way the baby inside is safe from being poked by twigs and sticks as mother climbs up a tree. No, it won't fall out because mum can close the opening of the pouch to keep baby nicely tucked in. Ever wondered why a koala's nose is so big? It's not for the same reason as Pinocchio! Koalas eat only the leaves of gum trees - eucalyptus trees. Some trees protect themselves by having a cyanide chemical in the leaves so a koala will carefully smell the leaves before eating them - its life depends on it! The closest relative of the koala is the wombat. Whereas koalas live in trees, wombats burrow underground. You don't find any up here in Queensland - you have to go south to Victoria to find wombats. Well if you don't want to travel that far, I took this picture in the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, one of the nicest places to visit on the Gold Coast. Just like koalas, mother wombat's pouch faces backwards - otherwise it would fill up with dirt as she digs her burrow underground.  Alas, we used to have kangaroos in the bush around here but as more and more houses were built, they moved further away. My son has a house about a mile from here bordering on the State Forest and he gets visited by the smaller Queensland Grey kangaroos. The two males in the picture below are bigger Red kangaroos. They were just having a friendly little playful fight but those claws lend an extra edge to those kicks and punches. Notice the stains of dried blood on their skins. They bend their heads backwards to protect their faces and especially their eyes from their opponent's claws.    |
The Book
