Lone Pine Wonders

 Saturday, September 24:

No new birds today, but oh my we saw other things. We visited the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary just west of downtown Brisbane, including a behind the scenes tour. We thought we would see a few koalas— but there are 100 there, all identifiable by name and appearance by their keepers. The sanctuary also nurtures endemic reptiles, birds and other mammals. We also got a much better view of a kookaburra, including one who landed on a picnic table in hopes of a handout.

Our day began with meeting a Barking Owl named Bo and a Barn Owl names Chip. Barking Owls are in the Hawk Owl family which means they hunt by sight. Bo’s feather were so soft, and her grumbling noises as she continually surveyed her surroundings were precious. We got to hold both owls on a leather glove, and Chip flew to us to collect bits of mouse set on the glove as a lure. Next we met an injured Wedge-tailed Eagle (the largest eagle in Australia) who will spend the rest of his life at the sanctuary, but seems to have a pretty comfortable life.

Then it was off to the reptile house, where we got to hold two endemic lizards (Grub the Shingleback and Draco the Inland Bearded Dragon), and a Woma Python named Sunny. All three were fascinating... the shingleback is also called the two-headed lizard as its primary defense is to curl up in a horseshoe so that its fat triangular tail (and rear feet that point backwards) give the appearance of two heads to scare off predators. Both the lizards have a third eye (not a full eye but capable of detecting light and shadow) on the top of their head to help warn them if a bird predator flies over. The python species is one that eats other reptiles in the wild, even venomous ones. 

Koalas at the sanctuary are well protected by the Australian government, and can only “work” for 30 minutes on  three out of every four days; at Lone Pine because they have so many koalas, each only works for 10 minutes rather than 30. “Work” means interacting with humans other than their keepers, and to be fair, if you sleep 16-20 hours per day then 30 minutes is a big chunk of your awake and eating time. Koalas are naturally lethargic as their eucalyptus leaf diet provides little energy and requires a lot of energy to digest. At the sanctuary the koalas can be particularly picky and eat only the most tender leaves of their favorite types of eucalyptus (each has their own favorites out of the 20 subspecies (from a total of 700) that Queensland koalas eat), confident the their keepers will replenish with fresh tender leaves the next day.  Perkins, our koala, was completely unfazed by our petting him and watching him eat. 

The highlight of the day was seeing, and helping to feed, two platypus (grandfather and grandson). First of all, they were smaller than we expected. Other things that we knew about platypus seemed more vivid “in person” for example seeing them swim around with their eyes and ears closed, feeling with their bills for movement to tell them where their prey is hiding. Platypus have two layers of fur, with air trapped between the layers for warmth and buoyancy. The easiest way to locate them as they forage for their food is to look for air bubbles— they have to release the trapped air in their fur layers to be able to sink. At the sanctuary, they are fed with live crayfish for their main meals and get a snack of meal worms and earthworms (and sometimes fly larvae) at mid-day. We helped clean earth off the earthworms and then toss the combination into each tank.  The platypus wait for everything to sink to the bottom as it is easier to find the food wriggling down there. They scoop up the snack and hold it in their cheeks like squirrels, returning to their above water dens to eat. The older platypus is so particular that he picks out all the earthworms first ( by feel with his bill) and comes back later for the less preferred mealworms.  Platypus are nocturnal, so during the day the exhibit is in darkness, and at dusk the lights get turned on to tell the platypus it’s time to go to bed. They come out of the water, enter plastic tunnels that lead to wooden boxes with towels inside to be their burrows, and go right to sleep. The keepers don’t need to touch them (or risk the platypus venom) at all. 

Finally, we also saw dingoes (who looked just like normal dogs), a cassowary, four kinds of kangaroo, a wombat and a Tasmanian Devil (who was kind enough to wake up from her midday nap and run around a bit for us). We had dinner with the other couple on the trip; there will be just four guests and two trip leaders.  A great day, and tonight the real trip starts. (As a reminder, we’ll be off grid for the next three days which somewhat excuses the length of this posting!)

Pictured: Koala, Tasmanian Devil, Shingleback Lizard