Christmas among the gumtrees

Deb feeding Warrego Martin
From koalawrangler's gallery.

It was a quiet Christmas this year, with no family in town, so we volunteered to work on Christmas morning. There were supposed to be a few of the usual volunteers away so it seemed like a nice thing to do, and an uplifting way to start the day.

The weather is glorious; clear and bright and not at all humid. We spray ourselves liberally with Aeroguard and headed into to what Warrego Martin is up to. Deb drags up a stool and starts feeding him. He seems a happy chappy these days. His pale fur always gives him a healthy look (although that is misleading since it's just his natural fur colour). We check him for ticks while Deb feeds him, taking care to avoid his eager grabs for her arm.

Next is Regatta Lanaye with her cloudy eyes. She's a quiet sort, keeps out of your way while you prepare her leaf. With two of us working we finished the yards in no time and decided to visit the other koalas.

Bonny Fire
From koalawrangler's gallery.

We went into yard 9 and helped finishing the raking and leaf gathering. Bonny Fire was high in her tree. There's a rather exciting rumour going around regarding Bonny. You may recall her midnight rendezvous with the studly Mr Roto Randy some weeks ago. Randy was found in yard 9 one morning, having spent the night there. Bonny had rather a dreamy look on her face, Birthday Girl wasn't saying a word and, well, Wiruna Lucky says she didn't see anything. But there's every chance that Bonny *may* be "with pinkie"! Some vollies have noticed her getting rather thick around the middle so we're all crossing our fingers that it's a thickening pouch not midriff bulge. Of course, we don't encourage those sort of shenanigans, this being a hospital after all. But what goes on between consenting koalas during the middle of the night is secret koala business and not to be questioned by us humans.

On the topic, I found an interesting video on YouTube recently. It shows a male and a female koala performing their mating calls to one another (not sure where it takes place). The male bellow is one we're used to hearing around here; the female "eeee eeee" cry, I've heard less often. Check it out:


Lastly, we pop over to see Oxley Denise. She has assumed the usual position for her: high in the spokes of her umbrella.


Oxley Denise
From koalawrangler's gallery.
We notice that Tractive Golfer has come down and is nibbling away at his leaf. He hasn't been fed his formula yet since he was high in the sky earlier. It's another opportunity for Deb to take a crack at koala-feeding.


Deb feeding Tractive Golfer
From koalawrangler's gallery.
Click here to view more of today's koala hospital snaps.