Kangaroos – Wildlife in my backyard
Wednesday, April 26th, 2006Despite what many people may think, kangaroos are not a common sight for most Australians, especially for aussies who live in city and urban areas. We are among the lucky few who get to enjoy these beautiful creatures in their natural habitat several times a week, as our backyard is part of their natural habitat! Although the native wildlife is abundant in our area, kangaroos in the backyard is not a common occurence for most people.
I took these photos of this Western Grey Kangaroo from the back steps of my house. As cute as she looks here, the ‘roos that come to visit and mow our back lawn are wild animals and the closest I can get to them is about three metres. Not that you really want to get too close to a wild kangaroo – the males can grow up to two metres from head to tail and can weigh 50 to 60 kgs (120 to 144lbs)!
Scenes like this is enough to inspire any artist!
They quite often spend the night grazing on our lawn, and occasionally we see one that spends the day dozing in the shade under a tree but usually in the wild they can be seen at dawn and dusk grazing in jarrah bushland and open paddocks.
Female kangaroos are known as does or fliers, the males are called bucks, but are also known as boomers or stinkers (they have a very strong aroma) and baby kangaroos are called joeys. The most we have had on our back lawn at one time is five which is a pretty small family group (mum and previous years joeys), normally a kangaroo mob will be larger in size.
Michelle
