Yes, we have echidnas...

Someone asked me yesterday about echidnas.  Do we have echidnas in Ellenbrook?  Yes, we certainly do, but you won't see them wandering around in broad daylight in your street, because they tend to be nocturnal.  And they prefer to stay in bushland, where there are tasty insects to eat, and shady places to sleep.  So, unless you have local plants and logs and termite mounds in your backyard, you probably won't ever find an echidna there.

Echidnas are heavy-set animals with thick spiky fur and long sharp quills.  They have sharp claws for digging into dirt and old timber, and a long "beak" and tongue for eating termites and ants.  They are monotremes - a special kind of mammal that lays eggs but suckles its young with milk.  Their eyes are small, and it seems that they rely a lot on their sense of smell.  Have a look at this link for more information and photos.

My bushwalking friends and I often see evidence of echidnas in bushland.  We see termite mounds with large holes scratched in them, and cylindrical "scats" (poo) that look like clay mixed with dead insects.  Sometimes we find rotting logs that have been ripped open, and distinctive tracks across patches of sand.  Look at this photo - an echidna had moved a small log to dig into the termite nest under it.  There are echidna footprints in the remains of the termite nest.

We know the echidnas are around, but they are difficult to find.

When you drive on roads near bushland at night, please slow down and keep an eye out for animals.  Echidnas, bandicoots, wallabies and other native animals have no idea about road safety.

world's biggest dugite and the Japanese hen

Ellenbrook is having a spell of cooler weather (11 to 24 degrees Celsius) and it’s a perfect time to go bushwalking.  So yesterday I headed off for a long stroll amongst the banksias and paperbarks.

At about 4pm I was carefully picking my way through an ephemeral wetland.  These kinds of wetlands have huge paperbark trees (typically Melaleuca preissiana) and a thick patchy understorey of shrubs and sedges.  Ephemeral wetlands in this part of Australia have water lying on the surface after rain in winter, and are dry most of the remainder of the year.  But the shrubs and trees are great places to see animals.  It’s slow going through this kind of country. 

 

I noticed a big shiny long dark animal lying on top of some low shrubs, sunning itself.  I was about to put my foot down about 1m in front of its head.  Then I found myself retracing a few slow steps.  I’d taken it all in, processed, reacted, and finally my brain said, “Stop, look at the snake!”  It was beautiful; glossy and in good health.  The head was slightly larger than my thumb, raised off the ground and turned slightly to look at this large beast blundering through its home territory (me).  The body was about 2cm thick in the middle.  The colouring was a uniform dark brown to black on the top and graduated to a lighter reddish orange-brown on the sides, with no markings.  The head was a lighter reddish brown with a distinct “venomous snake” shape.  I couldn’t see the whole length because the rear end was hooked in through the understorey, but what I could see was about 1.5m of Dugite (Pseudonaja affinis).  I walked quietly past without the snake even flicking its tongue.  When I was safely past, I had an urgent need to have another look at it, just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming!  This was the FIRST time I’ve seen a snake during my bushwalks around Ellenbrook (in hundreds of hours over three years of exploring).  So I crept back, and the snake just lay there placidly, unperturbed.  What a beauty!  I continued on my walk.

After a few hours of wandering, the sun was setting and it was time to go home.  As I walked back through banksia woodland on ancient dunes, I saw a tiny cartoon-ish face peering at me out of the sand.  I stooped to look closer.  Children’s plastic toy?  Piece of rubbish?  I took hold of it, and it was firmly embedded, so I dug it out.  It was a little pottery chicken, intact except for a couple of chips; white with black scallops and orange wattles.  A faded label said “Handcrafted Otagiri JAPAN”.  Possibly a salt shaker, judging by the two small holes.  How did this thing come to be in bushland?  It’s probably the weirdest “lost” item I’ve found yet.

the birdwatcher's ear

I love to witness the daily phenomenon called the "dawn chorus".  Strangely, it's not really just at dawn, and it's not a chorus.  "Pre-dawn multi-species polyphony" might be a better description!

About an hour before the sun comes up, the birds start waking up and starting their day; preening, looking around for breakfast, and calling to establish territories and locate the members of their family.  I guess it's the equivalent of people wandering around the house, putting coffee on, preparing some muesli and yoghurt, and saying good morning to each other.

This morning the sun rose at 5:22am, but the birds had been up and calling since at least 4:45am.  I was wandering around on the edge of a Bush Forever Site around 5am.  It was too dark to see the birds, so I had to rely on identifying their calls.

Here are some of the birds I heard in the "dawn chorus", and a rough description of the sounds they make:

• Western Wattlebirds - rolling chuckles
  
• New Holland Honeyeaters - chirpy tweety noises; contact calls to other family members
  
• Brown Honeyeaters - soft clicks, hoarse rasps and a sweet ringing song
  
• Australian Ringnecks ("Twenty-eights") - "da-da ding ding ding" like a doorbell
  
• Red-capped Parrot - high-pitched whistly squeaks
• Rufous Whistler - ringing "eeee- chong" and ringing song
• Splendid Fairy-wrens - high-pitched descending metallic reel "twisty twisty twisty twisty"
  
• Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike - rusty weedly creaks
  
• Laughing Kookaburra (note that this bird is not native to WA) - maniacal cackling

Birds seem to me to be louder when it's rainy or overcast, but maybe it's because sound travels further in wet air than in dry air.  (Alternately, it could be that the birds notice the change in the acoustics of their surroundings, and sing louder - much like people do when they discover the acoustics of the bathroom!)

kangaroo talk

Another long walk in the bush this week has given me some surprising new experiences about wildlife.  I was lucky enough to see two of our largest indigenous animals, the Western Grey Kangaroo (Macropus fuliginosus) and Emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae), doing stuff that these animals generally do. This is quite amazing, considering that I was only a stone's throw from suburbia.


The emu was walking along a footpath, looking wistfully through a fence at a small bushland reserve on the other side.  I could almost hear the little cogs turning, as it tried to work out how to get into the bushland.  The emu went up and down the fenceline, at a casual pace, paused for some photos taken by a smiling woman and her astonished children on a stroll, then wandered further north.  As there is lots of nice bushland further north, I feel I don't have to worry too much about the welfare of this magnificent big bird.  I followed its example and headed north.


Beautiful banksia woodlands, a big open wetland of sedges and hundreds of other different plants, and some big Melaleucas awaited.  I rested in the shade of a massive Melaleuca preissiana for a few minutes.  Then I headed further north along a sandy track for about 2km, until I reached the northern boundary of the bush reserve.  Kangaroos every few hundred metres, kangaroo scats, kangaroo prints in the sand, signs where kangaroos had nibbled plants.  It was as if I was on the home territory of the large furry macropods.  I was startled when a big male 'roo bounded out about 20m in front of me, and started "vocalizing" (the scientific term) or "making a loud noise that sounded like an angry woman roaring" (my description).  Did I say startled?  I quietly made my way behind a dense shrub and listened to the amazing sounds.  I tried to remember if there were any reports of male Western Greys harassing solo bushwalkers.  Nope.  Eastern Greys, yes, but not Western Greys.  Finally, I'd had enough of the animal blocking my path, so I made what I hoped sounded like a dog noise, and the 'roo bounded away.  Phew.


It's easy to think that kangaroos are silent creatures, but it's just not true.  (Neither are emus, for that matter.)  I have often heard the distress call of joeys when they have wandered too far from the safety of mum's pouch and are feeling threatened by my presence; it sounds like a short choking cough.  Very much like the noise made by a cat trying to rid itself of a hairball!  This is sometimes accompanied by a nervous flick of the joey's little tail.  The mother responds with a soft click, I think, and joey scampers away.  I would love to try recording these sounds, but don't want to carry too much equipment on my adventures.  (I think this would require at least a shot-gun microphone, a pair of headphones and a good digital recorder.....and the camera, as well, of course.)



Sadly, my camera is awaiting repairs, so I have nothing to show from my long walk besides this blog.