breakfast with marsupials

Breakfast this morning was a 'toast in one hand, phone/camera in the other' sort of affair, because a small mob of kangaroos were grazing near our cattle to the west of me while this lone wallaby munched happily less than 10 metres to the south. Armed with a phone, this was never going to be a photographic event, but I include this wallaby here because she has been hanging around for a while now, and whenever this happens with a wallaby I always end up feeling some sort of silly loyalty to it for some reason.

Unlike the very social kangaroos, these smaller creatures are very solitary and sometimes slow, even ponderous, but capable of speed and extreme agility in thick bushland. Their brilliance there is off-set by devastating indecision when faced with an on-coming vehicle on the road. They have been less common near us recently- maybe throughout the drought- but have reappeared this summer and are very welcome indeed.

These are low res pictures, and the first one has been doctored to make it more 'painterly', but you might notice something that appears to be protruding from the well-rounded tummy..... I do hope she takes care to protect that little one, but not so much care as to prevent me seeing it emerge for a play in the grass.