Wildlife

[TxCat]

While at Market Day, we had another lovely urban wildlife sighting. Early on, overhead, I heard a screech. We looked up and saw two red tailed hawks in their courting dance. It is so very, very rare to catch that moment when, talons locked, they tumble toward the ground before releasing each other. The male then let go and did that back flip they use to right themselves. He caught up with the female and they flew away, wing on wing.

Later, we watched a pair of mockingbirds courting. He'd pull himself up and puff his chest out straight as possible and then sidle along the gutter toward the female. She'd put up with his nuzzles for a few minutes and then fluff her feathers and beat at him with her wings before moving away. This went on for about thirty minutes before the male bird tired of being rejected and went back to his perch, where he started singing for all his life was worth.

It didn't get him what he wanted, though. We were the only ones to enjoy his song. She flew away.

[FennecFyre]

I once cared for a pair of baby birds. Their mother had built the nest inside our feed shed, and couldn't get back in, so she abandoned them. We took the nest and put it in an empty fishtank, and kept the birds in there. I fed them myself with a pair of tweezers (They were so adorable when they opened those mouths and begged for food!) and kept the nest clean. I dug worms up from the goatpen, cut them up, and fed the birds with that, until I found out they could be fed dog food. That made it a lot easier. I thought they were especially cute when they were full. They'd nestle against eachother, half-close their eyes, and make tiny little peeps every now and then. Sadly, we couldn't keep them, so we took them to a wildlife rehabber later.

And in the winter, we often deal with birds who get stuck in the chicken coop. They go in for the corn, but never seem to able to get back out. Sis and I chase them into a corner, grab them with a net or gloved hand, and release them outside the pen. It sort of makes me laugh when they try biting at my gloved finger, and one even hung on a few seconds before flying away.

[Batty]

Monotremes! Egg-laying mammals. Everyone knows about the platypus and how it's a mixed up species that lays eggs.

There is another species of monotreme that is far more common than the platypus: the echidna. It's a shame because echidnas are just as weird as platypuses and almost totally unstudied. And they are one of the most common mammals in Australia.

And I am one of the few lucky non-zoo employees licenced to raise orphans. There are more people on my Live Journal friends list than are permitted to handle baby echidnas.


Echidna by battyden, on Flickr
Pugsley at 30 days old. (raised by my friend Mel)

They are born... *hatched* as tiny naked things that cling to the underside of the mother until the spines come through, then the mother digs a burrow and leaves the baby in there while she forages.


New Puggle by battyden, on Flickr
Fips at 60 days old (raised by me)


Puggle by battyden, on Flickr
Fips at 60 days

The female leaves the baby for up to four days, then returns briefly the feed the young one. Echidnas don't have nipples - the milk just oozes through patches of skin and the young one slurps it up. Raising an orphan is quite simple: you dribble milk onto your hand the let the baby slurp it. You haven't been *licked* until you've been licked by an echidna.


Fips by battyden, on Flickr
Fips at 90 days


The Unbearable Cutness Of Puggles by battyden, on Flickr
Fips at 110 days

In the wild the babies live in the burrow for over six months. in captivity the youngsters love to escape from their cages and explore. Little Fips would get into my book case and dig all the books onto the floor.


Rampage by battyden, on Flickr
Fips at 4 months


Evening Meal after the big garden adventure. by battyden, on Flickr
Fips at 6 months, eating solids. The mix is lean beef, raw eggs, glucose, calcium, olive oil, and mashed termite nest.


Dog vs Echidna by battyden, on Flickr
Fips hassling Polly.

At 6 months on I take my babies for expeditions into the bush so they could get a taste of Outside, and termites. I kept the young echidna in an outside cage so he would get used to weather.


Termite Session by battyden, on Flickr
Fips at 7 months, in a termite nest.


Sun Bathing by battyden, on Flickr
Sun-baking. Echidnas have such a low body temperature, they have to sunbake to get warm before they can eat.

About this time, the wild mum would return to the burrow to feed the baby one last time and then she effectively abandons it. I set up little compounds around termite nests on a friends farm, kept up supplemental feeding and reduced physical contact . One day I opened the cage and set the young echidna free. What happened after that is up to the echidna; my involvement was ended.

Oh, and baby echidnas are named "puggles."

[TNHawke]

Even more awesome, Batty! I should see if I can find the photos of my last baby rehab, a house sparrow.

I am curious though- how do infant echidnas usually come to need to be raised by humans?
(stupid Firefox spellcheck! It recognizes echinoderm, but not echidna!)

[KaidaShade]

I'm relatively mundate when it comes to wildlife. We used to have common European frogs come to our garden pond every year to lay eggs, and I was always fascinated by the tadpoles and watching them grow. I was quite surprised when I found out they were carnivores and would eat chicken (and nibble your fingers if you put them in the water for long enough).

I also live quite close to the countryside and have horses out there, so I tend to see a lot of deer and the like in fields. There's a particular pair that seem to like grazing in the field opposite my horses, and I always have to be careful whilst driving on the road next to that field because they have a habit of darting across the road in front of me. I found a couple of dead deer out in the woods nearby a couple of weeks ago, I have no idea what killed them but I quite often hear people shooting out there. If someone had just killed them and left them I'd like to find that person... what's the point, seriously? You might as well eat them if you're going to hunt for sport, but that's a discussion for another thread.

We also see a lot of buzzards around there, and I frequently hear owls and woodpeckers. There's one owl that always starts hooting about an hour before dusk, I never knew they did that. You hear them more after dark while feeding the horses, and I've seen bats flying around out there as well.

[TNHawke]

Owls are more crespular than truly nocturnal, which means they wake up and are active at dawn and dusk, but they lean more towards the dark sides of those time frames, where as crespular hawks will be active more on the light sides.

I have photos of a Great Horned owl flying around over a desert area at 4 in the afternoon! It was very light out still, the sun wasn't due to go down for a couple more hours.

[Batty]

I am curious though- how do infant echidnas usually come to need to be raised by humans?

The young in the burrow are sometimes dug up by an excavator. This happens in new housing estates.

They are more often found clinging to the body of the mother after being hit by a car..

[TNHawke]

I am curious though- how do infant echidnas usually come to need to be raised by humans?

The young in the burrow are sometimes dug up by an excavator. This happens in new housing estates.

They are more often found clinging to the body of the mother after being hit by a car..

Ahhh, I see. That's really sad.

[Batty]

lrff14 by battyden, on Flickr

About 5 years ago a colony of little red flying foxes camped in the middle of town for a few weeks. These bats weigh about 600 grams on average, and have a wing span of about 70cm. Not big by flying fox standards, but when you get 10,000 of them in a small area...


lrff08 by battyden, on Flickr


lrff10 by battyden, on Flickr

...It's amazing. I am often called out to disentangle bats from netting (a good rescue) or barbed wire (very bad rescues.) Little red flying flying foxes migrate south from Queensland in the Spring and head North in Autumn.


lrff06 by battyden, on Flickr

A lot of people hate them because they damage fruit crops, but research has shown that they *only* eat plantation fruit when their native food is unavailable. Natural food is tree pollen and nectar, and wild fruit - you know... the things that are cleared away to make way for fruit plantations. The bats really do prefer nectar over pears and apples.

Flying foxes, fruitbats and blossom-bats are *the* primary pollination and seed distribution vectors for rain forests. If we didn't have these bats, we wouldn't have rain forests.


lrff12 by battyden, on Flickr

[TNHawke]

I love fruit bats SO much.


Around here... I've heard frogs the past few evenings! It was only 40 degrees- in the middle of the day! and the frogs were ribbiting!
It's raining tonight after a really warm day... I'm kind of hoping to maybe find some eggs or tadpoles tomorrow. It might be too early in the season yet. The bugs were certainly out in force this afternoon before the rain started though!

I've made a rather interesting observation about the local marmots... they come in colors ranging from grey to brown to red to yellow... I saw one who was so pale, I'd almost call him white! And then, there were two that I saw who were almost black, but then I realized they were wet. They'd just been for a swim in the creek! Silly marmots.

Saw cedar waxwings the other day. I love their sweeee sweeee calls.

Oh! I saw a great blue heron the other day- the same day I noticed all the colors of marmots.