Critters Down Under

One of the highlights of this trip has been Australia's exotic and unusual wildlife. Here's what we saw!

Kangaroos!
There are a few types, red (larger) and gray and also their smaller cousin the wallabee. All are marsupials that carry their young in a pouch until they are ready...about 6 months for a kangaroo. The kangees also have a rare cousin the Tree Kangaroo, which lives in the rainforest area and you guessed it, lives in trees. Bizarre, they hop from branch to branch. We didn't see any of these, but our guide spotted their poop on our trail in the Daintree Forest.






Sadly the first kangaroo we saw was a dead one on the side of the road back from Warnambool to Melbourne. In some ways kangaroos are like our deer, there are places where they are out grazing in the wild and not just in bush areas. Another major bummer was seeing kangaroo meat on several restaurant menus! C'mon Mates! (Much more common than seeing deer on the menu in the U.S.)

(above right.)Blue Mountains - mom feeding her Joey near a picnic area. They are very docile and didn't seem to mind us standing near by.

We got to feed a few kangaroos in captivity, Jack, Max and their wallabee buddy in a visitor area in near the Daintree Rainforest. They let you pet them everywhere, but their ears. It freaks them out as they can rotate their ears 180 % like radar. 

      Hey! Move that paw buddy!                     

 

                                                                 

  Jack is gettling a bit too eager for that food!

 
Their cousin, Mr. Wallabee...

Koalas!
We had heard about places where you could "cuddle" the Koalas and actually hold them. We ended up for timesake going to the Tarango Zoo in Sydney, which will not let you you hold them, but would let you come and stand by them and get a picture. Apparently holding is illegal in some states in Australia and not others.

Did you know these cuties sleep 20 hours a day? Something in the Eucalyptus leaves they eat makes them very sleepy.  
 Couch potatoes of the wild kingdom




Birds!
Imagine looking up into a tree and seeing rainbow colored parrots! The most unusual things are flying around "down there". We were walking back from breakfast in Cairns on our last morning and I looked up and saw several rainbow lorikeets in a tree. Look at how this guy poked his head out! I want one now!



Of course there are some not so pretty creatures flying around down there.
I always thought bats lived in caves....not in Australia...how about trees and flying everywhere! Eeek...We saw some in Sydney hanging out in the Royal Botanical Gardens..and then farther up the coast in Cairns. Good old noisy fruit bats! A lot!

Another very strange bird is the Cassowary. They're big, cousins to the Emu and Ostrich. They are supposed to be very rare. We were told there were only about 1000 in Australia, but this website seems to indicate more, though not a whole lot. Our Daintree rainforest guide told us that only about 15% of his tours see one, so it was fun to have spotted one. They have a strange symbiotic relationship with one of the trees in the rainforest. The Cassowary eats its bright blue/purple seed and then when it passes the seed it actually fertilizes it and the tree can then grow. Without this bird this tree is at risk. Probably vice versa too. We saw him on our way to get some ice-cream actually somewhere around there...

Here's an emu we saw at the Taranga Zoo. (My friends Marcus and Dinah have a small emu ranch in NJ.)




Our first day in Sydney we went for a walk in the Royal Botanical Gardens, huge place located near the Opera House and along the harbor. Imagine our surprise when we spy tons of Cockatoos! The white one's are called Sulfur Crested Cockatoos, they have some yellow markings o their crest. Anyone remember the TV show Baretta? Ok you are definitely middle-aged if you do. He had pet cockatiels which are smaller versions of them. They are too cute!!
We saw a pet one up in the Daintree Rainforest area in Queensland where we had lunch. He was hanging out on the top of his cage.

This little white blob in the tree is the same one in the upper right that we saw at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney.



There are also Yellow-Tailed Black Cockatoos. We saw a few in the Blue Mountains area outside of Sydney.

Here's what they call the Noisy Miner Bird. This guy came and hopped on our picnic table while were having a morning tea break in the Blue Mountains. Mel, our guide kept trying to shoo him away, but he wouldn't leave. However, I don't remember him being noisy at all..pretty quiet I think.



Meet the magpie with it's black and white markings. We heard some tales about them actually attacking people during their breeding season and how school children would have to wear helmets on the way to school.




Another well-known Australian bird
is the Laughing Kookaburra, known for it's bizarre laughing call it makes. They are believed to mate for life. They can also become quite tame around people.



I think these two are in the Sandpiper family, but gave up trying to look them up. There's a bunch of different kinds. 

Here's  another one we don't know, but it cracked us up...We saw these ducks standing on one leg in the zoo.

Check out the Crimson Rosella.  Mel also pointed this out on the side of the road as we were driving in the Blue Mountains.

Someone asked me if we saw crocodiles, unfortunately or fortunately? we only saw one small baby one on a boat ride through the Daintree area.  You can barely seem him in this picture.  He's sitting there on the log about to slink into the water.  I think this was not the right season to see them (it was  summer down there).  

Here's another native Australian animal, the wombat.  We only saw him in the zoo and he decided to flop over for us. I think he wanted a belly rub. 

 Meet Boyd's Forest Dragon, they only live in rainforest areas in eastern Queensland.  We saw him during our trip to Daintree.   They grow to 15cm.  Not sure how long that is in inches, but they didn't seem that big. Maybe 10 inches?  Saw a few there. 

 Matthew, our Rainforest guide, pulled the bus over on the way back and said, "This stop isn't on the brochure, but I really wanted to show you something."  He walked to a bush near the beach and pointed out this critter out.  It's a peppermint stick bug.  About 4 inches long, this thing emits a peppermint odor when threatened.  He poked a little twig at it and passed it around.  Yep, peppermint.    Only in Australia.

 

I had to put this cutie in here at the end. Although he doesn't have anything to do with Australia, he was at the zoo and we fell in love with him! A little baby Asian elephant.  They had a nice show with several elephants doing some tricks and this little guy was running around with his soccer ball.

Whoops, almost forgot. The Harbor Bridge bunnies!  We walked underneath the bridge and saw a bunch of cute bunnies.  They look like big domestic bunnies, probably someone turned them loose.