Archive for January 2013

“Foot” and “Leg” had Christmas dinner with us some years ago. They waited on the balcony rail for a hand-out of seeds. Nature is unkind to those who are not fit and able. The story of “Foot” and “Leg” is a sad yet encouraging one. “Foot” broke his foot some years ago and walks clumsily.…

These week-old chicks were found in a brick wall during home renovations. The parents had chewed through some electrical wiring near the nest and so it had to be removed. Relocating the birds was not successful so I had the pleasure of hand-rearing them. As nestlings they were fed with a slurry of Insectivore Mixture…

This particular winter’s day I received a call that “There is a penguin in difficulties off our restaurant”. In the true spirit of a wildlife carer I donned bathing togs and rushed to Little Manly Cove to the rescue. The diners on the terrace had a beautiful view of breaking sea on oyster covered rocks…

“Barny Brushtail is not well. He has sore places and is very sick.” When I got there Barny was asleep under a pot plant on the balcony. I checked him over – he had very sore and infected testicles. I took him to the vet, who looked decidedly worried at the prospect of handling this…

Each time I attend a motor racing Grand Prix I wonder at the persistence of the local birds in living normally while surrounded by horrendous noise and chaos. The French Grand Prix was no exception. Welcome swallows challenged the conditions while feeding and rearing their young in a nest in the garage of the McLaren…

My baby dove was outside in a cage. I put him on the top of the cage to feed him and out of the corner of my eye I saw a darting movement. I grabbed baby as a kookaburra brushed by my hand missing his “lunch” by an inch. My next encounter with the same…

Brushy mum had a nasty hip injury. But with a flat furred baby in her pouch she was kept as comfortable as possible in a small aviary. Mum didn’t move or eat for 4 days but baby was more adventurous and came down to feed from the fruit bowl. Mum then started eating well and…

Australian Magpies belong to the same family as the Butcherbirds and Currawongs. They are found in areas in which there are trees (used for shelter, nesting and roosting) and bare ground or grassy areas in which to feed. Magpies are omnivores and forage on the ground, turning over loose material, probing into the ground with…

Of the many species of plovers the masked Lapwing is the most commonly encountered. They live in the country, in the suburbs and even on high-rise buildings. They drive their name from the yellow mask on their face. This mask is cream in juvenile birds and develops its full colouring as it matures. The name…

I released two juvenile long-nosed bandicoots in my garden and put a group of four young ones into the “rabbit hutch”. A few days later one of the released juveniles came indoors and I found it in the bedroom. So, I caught it. Having shut the babies in the covered section of the hutch I…

Ringtail mum had a back injury and could not climb. However she looked after her two babies really well in a nest box on the floor of the cage. Two weeks later I got into care a ringtail baby that was about the same size as her babies and was back-riding the other young ringtails…

My White-faced Heron story is one of those instances that make all our hard work worthwhile. I was called to a Sydney waterfront home in whose gum tree white faced herons nest each year. This year they raised four young, but at fledging the parents were faced with a problem. The broods do not always…

Somewhere, somehow this Little Penguin swam through a slick of heavy bunker-type oil, and was covered from head to toe when found by a little girl with a passion for penguins. Her room, she told me as she handed him over, is plastered with penguin pictures. I first wrapped him in a towel to stop…

The mother of this 75 gram brushtail baby was killed by a cat and furless baby was covered in scratches. Hence his name “Scratch”. Because of the infections from the cat scratches, and the fact that he was very young he was nursed day and night and lived for the first few months of his…