This morning Oliver and Antonia found a koala - it was across the drive very close to the house and up a eucalyptus tree. The koala seemed very comfortable jammed into a fork on his or her tree on what was a quite small branch.
They are (according to the www.savethekoala.com website) arboreal [tree living], herbivorous [plant eating] marsupial who, it is thought, use their noses to test the toxicity of eucalyptus leaves - this fluctuates according to the type of eucalypt and the time of year. He had obviously found that this tree was a good prospect for his breakfast.
As we watched, another koala approached and started to climb up the same tree. This started a grunting, bellowing and gesturing territorial 'war' for a few minutes with the lower koala attempting to talk his way up the tree and the top one loudly protesting.
We think it was two males jocking for position for the tasty leaves on the tree. We don't think it was a male and a female who look pretty much the same, although it is the mating season. Apparently the mature males have a scent gland on their white fronts and the females have a pouch - as they are usually UP a tree when you spot them it is very difficult to decide if they are male or female.
After a few minutes of the lower trying to get further and being repelled, he climbed down into the bushes but was to be seen up the next door tree after a few minutes. They both went to sleep (they sleep for 18-20 hours a day) for the rest of the day but were gone the next morning.
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