Tasmania - for us - was love at first sight. It's calm, relaxed, physically beautiful, the people are friendly, the weather is mellow and the wild life is delightful. Actually, the last comment is a lie. Most of the wildlife (birds, kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, possums, etc) are delightful ......but the eponymous Tasmanian Devil is anything but!
Warner Brothers' version is far too gentle. The living Taz is a hissing, snarling, snapping, biting ball of unpleasantness. We didn't see them in the wild, but did spend some time watching them in large enclosures. Two Devils can be snapping at opposite ends of the pen. Suddenly, one wakes and hustles down to attack his friend. No reason, no provocation, it just seemed like a good idea. They should have evolved in the Middle East.
Our shots are not heavily edited - they seem to spend most waking hours attacking each other. Note the red ears - apparently some form of heat control mechanism with blood close to the surface and directionally variable to the sun/wind
Despite their social misanthropy, Devils are perversely interesting - a feeling heightened by their potential extinction. For reasons unknown, they have generated a genetic, contagious facial cancer that is rapidly killing them. No cure is known. Attempts to breed geographically and genetically isolated lines are underway. A provoking sidebar - no one is sure if the phenomena could be transmitted to humans....if we have to go "Devil Flu" seems far more elegant than "Bird Flu".
Of course, the rest of Tasmania is one big adult petting zoo and Liz luxuriates in it. when you regularly see and hand feed kangaroos and wallabies, their frequent road kill deaths become just the more tragic. Following are some shots from various places of Liz and her friends - some alpha males, some lonely outsiders - she loved them all.
The foregoing shot is symbolic as it occurred while we were hiking up a mountain with a lot of other people around. The Roo comes out of the bush, obviously seeking to mooch some food. Liz and Dick are bouncing up and down - "Here's a live, wild Kangaroo!!!" Everyone else is looking at us like the Einsteins who found a live, wild gray squirrel in High Park. We still have lots to learn but you have to admit that a kangaroo is neater than a grey squirrel - sorta.
Here's more Roos and Wallabies including our reclusive Wally the Lonely Wallaby; the testicularily endowed Alpha Male and various mothers with pouched infants that must have freaked out the first European discoverers
As always in Australasia, the birds seduced us. when parrots are thousands of dollars each in a Canadian pet store, it's strange to sit and watch 50 of them feeding in your backyard. We have few great wild shots. They play high in the trees and move constantly. The following are caged in a reserve. We did have much fun with them - they are smart and have learned how to con visitors - the white one below constantly called "Hello" and consequently got most of the shortbread cookies we weren't supposed to have
One of our favourite is the Kookaburras who would perch in the Eucalyptus behind our house and emit their incredible call.....a distillation of every jungle sound from the first Tarzan black and white to the wonders of Jurrassic Park - they are sublime
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