Swamp Wallaby

This is from the 2006 trip Christine and I took to Australia. We were driving into Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park north of Sydney when all of a sudden there it was, a swamp wallaby (we incorrectly say rock wallaby in the video), just sitting on the side of the road. What follows are, while still worth viewing, in my opinion, the kind of photographs and video you get when you are freaking out about seeing your very first wild wallaby.

You can almost hear the wallaby shake his head in the video, and say "If you would have just relaxed I would sat here and let you take pictures of me all day. I would have posed! You dope."

Much more on the swamp wallaby here.

Stick Cocoon Creature, Banksia Man, and Singing Tree

The eagle-eyed Christine stopped us yesterday on our hike in Ku-Ring-gai National Park, saying, "Thom, look at this."

I looked at this:

It was about four inches long. It was soft: you could squeeze it, like it was an empty sac. It smelled resiny.

"It's a cocoon," Christine said. "I remember them from when I was little."

I've just looked it up, and I quickly found a remarkably similar photo—even down to the way those outer sticks are configured: it's the cocoon (empty, pretty sure) of the caterpillar of a case moth, possibly the Saunders' Case Moth, Metura elongatus. Oh, you have to go here, too. And holy crap, here, too. (I've just realized, this is related to the "Walking Turd" from December, but a different species, clearly.)

Good eye, Christine.

Now here's Christine and a scary Banksia  Man. (Guess which ones which.)

Aren't she perty?

And a tree:

Oh, Vienna!

***

Christine suddenly burst out in song on the way home, singing along with a song on the radio that I'd never heard in my life.