3 replies to this topic

[nineteenineteen]

I was looking out my window on Tuesday night, and noticed a brushtail possum walking along my fence. Which is a bit weird considering I live about 10 minutes walk from the centre of Launceston, and the nearest patch of "native" vegetation is the Gorge*, about 4km away. When it looked in the window & noticed two pasty white, hairless possums staring back, it ran up the next door neighbours sycamore & proceeded to intimidate us with many growlings. Eventually (after an hour of sitting still in the tree with out security lights blinking at it), it took off somewhere down the neighbouring backyard. I get the feeling it actually might be living in my shed, which has no glass in the windows & we keep on finding the door wide open of a morning.

It always amazes me where wildlife will turn up, but then I think of the nature of possums (ie. scavenging, curious, bold, etc) and feel a little bit silly for expecting they wouldn't be in suburbia. After reading "the New Nature" by Tim Low a couple of times now, you'd think I would know better!

I did also have what I thought was a large chicken land in the blackwood at the bottom of my garden about 12 months ago. When I put my glasses on I realised it was a grey goshawk - one of the rarest birds in Tasmania - munching away on a starling. I watched this guy for about 10 minutes, feeling like the luckiest chap in Launceston. I've heard other people mention that one of these beautiful raptors was seen haunting Windmill Hill in the past 6 months.

I could probably go on & on about my urban wildlife stories, but I want to know: anyone else had any interesting wildlife experiences in suburbia?

* if you've ever walked along the northern side of the Gorge, you'll understand my use of quotes around native...

[Shane V]

Where we live at the moment we mainly see birds. We have starlings, sparrows, the occasional visit from Superb Fairy wrens. I have seen sulphur crested Cockatoos and yellow tailed Blacks as well. At the end of our street is the foothills of Mt Murchison, sono doubt there will be other animals here as well, just haven't seen them.

[peter]

Not sure about the back yard but it seems that way now that we tend to travel the outback a lot. We were camped in a tent in the middle of nowhere, next to a creek, about 400kms from Darwin when Sandy decided she had to get out of bed for a nature call. She unzipped the tent turned on the torch as she went out then quick as a flash back into the tent landing on top of me. I thought it was my lucky night but she was as white as a ghost trying to tell me something. Eventually all she could say weas that the eyes were looking at her. I picked up the torch and boldly (gingerly) looked outside to find that we were surrounded by a herd of water buffaloe! So quiet we didn't even know they were there. I can't remember if Sandy eventually had her nature call or not but in the morning the hoof prints were all around us up to a few feet from the tent and no buffaloes in sight.

[Mystic]

Somehow I can just imagine Sandy flying back into the tent in the middle of the night. Sounds like an amazing experience Peter.