A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Banter Hall The Critter Corner Wallabies at Hanging Rock

We had a picnic at Hanging rock yesterday. Here are some photos of a mother wallaby and her joey that we saw there.





And a log with gnarly bark that I liked.

Those are ADORABLE.......but......WHAT?!? NO Koalas?!?

I have an acquaintance, Ursula Vernon who IS a wombat. She writes and illustrates an online Comic called, "Digger"

Yep, wombats are cute. I think you are right Memosa, there is at least one species of wombat that is endangered. We have that book too, the kids love it.

Good old Steve Irwin; he was well loved over here. Always thought it would be a crocodile that got him, never thought of a stingray.

Sorry, Thorn, didn't see a koala. They are there, but you get a sore neck looking for them.

Hi Memosa, from what I can gather, there are 2 species of wombat that are in danger; the northern hairy-nosed wombat and the southern hairy-nosed wombat. The northern one is in more danger. Don't know about mange; I thought it was maybe due to loss of habitat.

The Tasmanian Devils are rapidly dying out in Tassie; this is due to a type of cancer that attacks their face. They spread it by biting. If you've ever watched them feeding, you will know that biting (each other as well as the food) is one of their favourite activities. On the mainland, Tassie Devils are free of this disease, so zoos could well hold the key to the survival of this species.

You are right, we are ruining the environment and have lost a lot of species. We in Australia have a terrible history in this regard, but thankfully that is starting to turn around now. One of my biggest beefs is the whaling that goes on in the southern ocean by the Japanese in the name of science- of course, it has nothing whatsoever to do with science. It is a disaster, especially when you see the barbaric way they kill these very intelligent animals.

Sorry, I forgot to answer your question about the bottlebrush. These are natives of Australia and New Caledonia, as I understand it. They are related to paperbarks. Some have been imported to the Everglades, and probably represent some kind of threat to the natural ecology there. We have 3 in our back yard; ours all grow red flowers when they flower in spring. They have finished their flowering now. I have seen yellow ones around, but red seems to be the most common. When they flower later this year (around September/October), I will post some photos if you are still interested.

When are you Australians gonna get some sense and STOP reversing your Seasons and climate gradients and turn them back to normal like we have in the Northern Hemisphere. AND what's going on with your CLOCKWISE spiral of water when you flush the toilet? You think your cute being different, don't you?

Thorny reads the above comments while eating a bowl of Gorilla/Seal/Dolphin stew (For scientific reasons, of course).

If it's for scientific purposes, then that's okay! Speaking of science, it's scientifically proven that a clockwise flushing spiral is more efficient than anti-clockwise. That's why we do it. I can't do much about the seasons, but if I could, I'd make it rain here for about 6 months. Of course, there is only one who can do that- Memosa mentioned Him in another post!

I tease all my Aussie friends about the weird effects of being in the Southern Hemisphere. Your South is our North and vice-versa. Winter is Summer, spring is Fall, etc. etc. I bet you eat Prawns and put fried eggs and beet root on your hamburgers (I tried that......it's DELICIOUS). And what about Vegemite on toast. My friend Myrabye Tomlinson in Ballarat told me about the hamburgers and vegemite. She likes hers on burnt toast. I've looked but so far can't find Vegemite or Maramite in our stores here. I'd LOVE to try some. Our daughter goes to Scotland several times a year to see her fiance and brings me back Scottish treats like Marmalade......YUCK!!!! The shortbread is wonderful.

Our diet is very similar to what you have in the US, apart from a few small details. Vegemite is of course one of them. If you do happen to find some, the most important thing to remember is, it's not Nutella (or whatever you call your chocolate spread over there)!! You need to spread it very thin! I do eat it in the mornings, but have never had it on hamburgers.

Yes, we don't tend to eat pumpkin for dessert. There is also a scientific reason for this, and I will let you know what it is as soon as I find out myself.

Pumpkin Pie, turkey, and cranberry sauce is the tradition of our holiday, Thanksgiving, a Holiday devoted to giving thanks and Gluttony. I usually get a bite of turkey and cranberry sauce and two or three LARGE Pumpkin Pies, about 25-30 cm in diameter that weigh about 1/2 to 1 Kilo apiece (yes, I am quite comfortable with the Metric system). Pumpkin pies are VERY sweet and spicy, seasoned with cinnamon. cloves, ginger, and other seasonings. Then you put a dollop of whipped cream on top and you are in heaven. Thanksgiving always occurs on the last Thursday in November for some reason.

With a good coffee, I think I could handle some of that!!

Speaking of units of measurement, I was given a garden thermometer at Christmas, and it has both °F and °C. Now I will know what you guys mean when you say it's 70°; I'll be able to check it against the proper scale!! If it hit 70 in our scale, there would be a lot of dead people (although I have seen it hit 48.5 when I lived in Port Hedland, WA (that's about 119 in your scale).

very interesting reading here! I love to hear about other countries and their culture and animals and the directional flow of their toliets.
let me show my ignorance here for a second and ask what is the difference between a wallaby and a kangaroo?

They're both marsupials, meaning mothers carry their young around in built-in pouches. And scientists have even grouped them into the same order, family and subfamily.

The most obvious difference between the wallaby and the kangaroo is size. As a rule, the kangaroo is generally much larger than the wallaby. The kangaroo has more height between its ankles and knees, which makes its legs seem out of proportion to its body. The kangaroo's legs are built for speed on open terrain. The wallaby's more compact legs are built for agility in forested areas. Although there are many different species of both wallabies and kangaroos that span a wide range of sizes, wallabies only tend to weigh between four pounds and 53 pounds (2 kg to 24 kg) and grow a mere 12 inches to 24 inches (30 cm to 104 cm) tall, not including their tails [source: "Wallaby"]. Kangaroos, on the other hand, can grow to heights of 8 feet (2.1 meters) and weigh as much as 200 pounds (91 kg) [source: Microsoft Encarta].

Another simple way to tell a wallaby and a kangaroo apart is by their coloring. A wallaby's coat is usually brighter with two to three different colors. For example, the unfortunately-named "red-necked" wallaby's grayish body is distinguished by reddish markings around its shoulders. The kangaroo's coat is usually less splashy and more uniform, with muted colors like brown or gray.

awwwwww! ok.
I guess by the picture I couldn't really get an idea of the their size.
Well, you learn something new everyday.
thanks for the info.

Thanks Memosa, you answered it better than i could. I usually just go by their size. Kangaroos can be aggressive, and it's best not to mess with them. Wallabies are usually very gentle, in my experience. If you reckon these ones are cute, you will love the quokkas. We saw these guys when we visited Rottnest Island last Christmas holidays. They are gorgeous! I will go through my photos and post one soon. Meanwhile, you can see what they are like at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quokka

And as for the directional flow of our toilets, I'm taking Thorn's word on this one- I haven't actually checked. Tell you what, I'll check here, and you guys check there, and we'll see if it's true!

Oh, no need to question thorn. He's our gooruu of gooru! the 'great bowanna' the teacher of all things teachable..... ok, that may be a little over the top!
I beleive your toilets flush the wrong way because your huricanes also rotate in the wrong direction.

The bit about the hurricanes is probably true, although we call them cyclones, but I checked the toilet, and it just seems to flush in a downward direction, with no rotatory motion, so I reckon Thorn's authority on this matter could be called into question . I will have to check the bath at home, and see which direction the water drains.

OH. Ye've got them dam British toilets that flush straight down. My daughter says that's what they have in Scotland. Ours spiral down in a counter-clockwise direction. I'll ask some of my buddies at Oxford University in London about that. I am a member of Galaxy Zoo< based at Oxford, where we classify never before seen galaxies and DEEP space objects. I've been with them from the day they started and have personally classified over 7,000 NEVER before seen galaxies. We've already classified over 1,000,000 galaxies and have made some ASTOUNDING discoveries. Anyway we have a forum for socializing where we discuss everything! Brian May, the lead guitar player for Queen, is now an Astronomer with a PhD in Physics and Astronomy at Oxford and is a sometimes commentor. He talks about his music as well as Astronomy.

Those Quokkas are ADORABLE!

That must keep you busy! I love looking at the moon through my spotting scope, but haven't got anything for serious astronomy. Maybe one day when I have some spare money....(ha ha)

Queen, now that was a talented band. They don't make 'em like that any more! Freddie had such an amazing voice.

Yes, you just want to take some Quokkas home, when you see them. I imagine that would incur a fairly hefty fine, though.

I don't have a telescope. We are sent pictures of never-before-seen deep space objects, taken with a computer-controlled, robotic telescope located in New Mexico. The images are stored on computers at Oxford University in London and then sent out to us for simple analysis. The odd ones we flag and send to the Oxford Astronomers who further process them. The pictures we are sent are of galaxies and objects that have NEVER been seen by a human being before. YOU are the FIRST human to EVER see them. I reported the largest merger of galaxies around the most massive black hole ever discovered to-date. There appear to be 4 or 5 HUGE galaxies being sucked into an even BIGGER black hole, billions of light-years away. They are now researching it further. A 25 year old Schoolteacher in The Netherlands discovered a new TYPE of deep-space object that has never before been seen. Her name is Hanny. She teaches 10-12 year olds by day and plays guitar in a rock band at night, and in between times does Astronomy. The thing she discovered has been named, "Hanny's Voorwerp". It is a gigantic, glowing, green object with a ghost-like shape. It is NOT a galaxy......REALLY creepy! "Voorwerp" means OBJECT in Dutch.

That's awe-inspiring! It's hard to get your head around some of the numbers associated with astronomy.

Memosa, if you ever do get a telescope, I have read that it's important not to buy a cheap one; they are useless. When they advertise 500 or 700 times magnification, those numbers are not a good guide to how good the telescope is. But there are websites that will tell you what to look for in a telescope.

Here's a link I looked at when I was thinking of buying a telescope a couple of years ago.

http://astronomy.concreteairship.com/scope.htm

I've settled for a spotting scope....for now. When I'm rich (but hopefully not famous), I will buy a good telescope.

The most important thing is LIGHT gathering rather than magnification. The bigger the diameter of the front of the telescope the more light and the better the picture. The ONLY time I ever saw the Andromeda Galaxy was through a pair of $35.00, Tasco, 10 X 50 binoculars. It was BREATHTAKING! I also saw Halley's Comet that night through the same binoculars.

Here is a picture of that Huge Merger around that Huge Black Hole I reported. The Black Hole is, of course, invisible, since light CAN'T escape it, but you can see the effects of it on the galaxies being pulled towards it and stretched. Two of them, at the center, appear to be one, a red half, and a whitish-yellow half. These are the actual colors, and I was the first person to see it.

Hanny's Voorwerp is the green cloud at the bottom of the picture.


HANNY'S VOORWERP




HANNY VAN ARK