A gorgeous creature!

On looking out of the window last week, I noticed a stocky creature waddling across our front yard.

[Okay, insert joke about waddling pregnant woman here.

No, it was not me.]

At first I thought it was a wombat. A small wombat out during the day nonetheless. On closer inspection, as I ‘raced’ through the house looking at the creature through the windows, I noticed it was actually an echidna.

I grabbed my camera – of course it was somewhere obscure – and began shrieking that everybody come and see the echidna (Monte was having a conference with a client at the time… oops).

Wearing my pink slippers, I went to meet my fellow waddler. It was nearly 30cm in diameter. I say ‘diameter’ because it seemed round. Another thing the fellow and I have in common. Of course the echidna did not like me being so close to it – and I did get very close. It stood very still. It nuzzled its nose into the ground. When the children arrived it began burrowing into the ground a bit.

The echidna is a lovely animal. The Tasmanian variety seems to have less spikes and it almost appears quite fluffy. Its coat is a dark brown, almost black. Its eyes were beady and I got a good look at its snout too: probably 6-7cm in length and 1cm diameter.

I think it was fascinating to see an echidna on our property – and so close to our house too! I’ve no idea why it came so close to the house. Our dog, d’Artagnan, was nearby (she was a bit afraid of the echidna, however). Perhaps the echidna sensed some tasty ants, or perhaps its habitat was inundated with the rain. Maybe our cat Naigee scared it away. I guess we’ll never know.

The children were rapt

The two round waddlers take a moment to make their acquaintance

We’re accustomed to wallabies coming close to our house (they leave their droppings at our doorstep). We also have lots of blue wrens, sparrows and several varieties of robins coming very close to the house. I love to watch the birds; they flit close to our windows and they are so perfectly formed and so tiny too. We have not seen any eagles lately but hopefully we will see them soaring again soon, as the weather gets warmer.

On the topic of weather, currently it is incredibly cold and wet. Snow is forecasted at sea level. A few weeks ago we had snow at our place. I loved watching it float down but the moment did not last long and it was mostly sleet that we received. Maybe tomorrow, when we wake up, there will be snow (and more wallaby poo) in our backyard!