In-between fieldwork: Laughing kookaburra

Laughing kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae) - love them! They are loud and bossy, but also manage to appear very cuddly.

Very entertaining to watch, I had so much fun watching them dig for worms and eat them up like they were spaghetti.

We do have some issues with the ones on the study side as they are very used to people. This means that when we are mist-netting in order to catch superb fairy-wrens and ring them we have to be really careful and watch out for kookaburras. They will come very close to people and the nets and might try to grab any birds that fall into the net. They just sit there and wait!

In-between fieldwork: Koala

Koalas in Canberra are extinct, which is a great shame. Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve used to have a few captive koalas, but from what I have been told all but one of them died in the big 2003 bush fires. Poor things.

Some koalas have been translocated back to the reserve recently and I saw those. They have a little house there, where some of them sleep. They live up to the cuteness standards.

I was also lucky enough to see one of them awake and climbing around. At one point he was hanging using only his arms,flailing his legs around - pretty funny sight!