Australian wildlife

Kangaroos and wallabies being hand fed

My brother and niece (who live in the US) and I visited a wildlife reserve a few weeks ago as my niece really wanted to meet some Australia wildlife. I thought I would share with you some of the furry friends we met. The nice thing about this park was being able to mingle with some of the animals face-to-face and as you can see from the photos above, able to feed them. These kangaroos and wallabies have all been hand reared, therefore very use to humans and in fact, we decided, very dog like as they kept following us.

In case you were wondering how kangaroos and wallabies differ, whilst they belong to the same family (macropods and marsupials), Kangaroos are bigger at around 8 foot compared to the wallaby at 2 feet, kangaroos have longer legs between the knees and ankles and the wallaby has a brighter and more colourful coat whilst the kangaroo has more sober colours. Kangaroos eat grasses whilst the wallaby eats mostly leaves in more forest areas. (SOURCE) 

Mother with her baby "joey"

You will notice some white kangaroos, these are albino and if in the wild would not survive due to their colour and eye sight making it difficult to dodge predators. However in the safety of a reserve they are doing very well and were very sweet and affectionate. We thought the big albino at the back was older than the rest and kept wanting lots of pats.

New friends

A hairy nosed wombat: these creatures are native to Australia and not found anywhere else. They are nocturnal grazers and eat mainly grasses and roots. They live in large burrows up to 30 metres (100 feet) in long and they are extremely strong and very proficient diggers. They are about  1 metre (40 inches long) and weigh around 25kg (55 pounds). They can live for 30 years, but most in the wild don't as they are often killed by cars. They are generally solitary creatures and most Australians have never seen a wombat in the wild. I have only ever seen them dead on the side of the road :( 

This beautiful bird is a Kookaburra and we have a family living in our street.  If you have never heard the sound of a kookaburra laughing, listen to these as its rather lovely (CLICK HERE), in particular the "Kookaburra in the evening" because that is the sound I often hear when I am at home. 

This bird kept on following us, showing off his magnificent tail. Whilst not an Australian native, they are now found in the wild in Australia and have made themselves quite comfortable here to the point of being a pest in some areas.

One thing my American niece wanted to do was hold a koala and now she can tick it off her bucket list. She said it was like hold a very heavy baby which was very soft and fury!  Koalas are not bears even though they might look a little bear like. They are related to kangaroos and wombats and are a marsupial mammal. If you want to learn more about koalas, check out this PAGE as its full of information.

I hope you enjoyed these beautiful fury creatures as much I did seeing them. 

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