Male grey kangaroo
You can see from the dead grass above, why this buck has to resort to other measures, in order to get the calories he needs. This boy would have been raised here, by his mother, some time in the past 10 years. He's not particularly old, but not that young either. I'd say he's in his prime.
He knows there is food in our garden too, and luckily, size is on his side now. So he can reach to higher places for it.
Stretching high
This is a leucaena tree, I pollarded a few months ago. Despite the lack of rain, it has managed to push out new growth. The leaves are full of protein, so this boy hugs the tree, and stands on his tippy-toes, to reach them. The female kangaroos cannot manage this feat, so I'm going to have to organise some shorter pollards, elsewhere.
This weed tree, we're asked to eradicate, is feeding the wildlife, long after their native food sources, are gone. Consider the farmers now in drought, some are completely reliant on this particular tree as a form of food for their cattle now. If you're interested in learning more, and whether this is a suitable forage plant to grow in your region, visit The Leucaena Network. They recommend responsible control, as their #1 growing tip.
Anyway, I'm glad I pollarded this tree earlier. I was intending to grow it as mulch for the garden, but so long as he poops it out nearby, we'll call it a trade.
Red grevillea
Here's something new I learned they eat too. Grevillea flowers! I had no idea this could be a part of their diet, until I saw him munching them from off the shrub, one morning. It seems the bees, have some stiff competition for blooms now. They better get up early, to beat the rush.
Garden variety geranium/pelargonium
He's also been eating the geraniums, which completely surprised me as well. This stuff must taste awful, and yet, the kangaroos need to glean their calories from somewhere.
If you click on the picture, you may even catch a glimpse of the tick, I think is on the side of his eye. Either that, or it's a war wound from the fight he had with another male recently.
Luckily these are not the only saltbushes I have
What started out as a couple of broken branches, on one shrub, has turned into a procession of broken branches on three saltbushes. Old-man saltbush, contains protein in their leaves, so is often planted by farmers, as forage for livestock in drought. I guess it's serving it's purpose here too, even if they're not cattle or sheep.
I wonder how much of my garden will be left, by the time the rains arrive in earnest? I'm not particularly precious about my garden, but this is the worst drought year, we've had. I just hope it's enough to get the local inhabitants through. Surely, we'll catch one of these storms soon!
With you it's kangaroos, with me it's rabbits! At least they can't reach as high! I hope you get that rain soon.
ReplyDeleteWe get hares, rather than rabbits, which eat the pumpkins. But we haven't grown any successfully in the past few years. Normally the kangaroos eat what we deliberately planted for them - but it's all gone now, so we're learning what new things they're prepared to eat.
DeleteNo storms here either, Chris. I did hear a bit of thunder yesterday but that was all. The wildlife is doing it tough not to mention our poor farmers. Surely it will rain soon.
ReplyDeleteFingers and toes crossed for that rain, Chel. At least it's still cool in the evenings though. We might be missing the storms, but wer'e still getting those cool breezes from them.
DeleteChris, my Mum lives on a rural property in the Far North where it's been really dry and, when I phoned her yesterday, she was telling me the local kangaroos have been feasting on her garden too, even eating her gerberas! This droughts is tough, for animals and people too. We have a storm at the moment rolling over the ridge but, from the radar, we are just catching the edge of it. I hope you get rain out your way soon. Fingers crossed! Meg:)
ReplyDeleteAnother storm skirted around us today, lol. I hope you got some rain at your end. It's nice to know it's landing somewhere. :)
DeleteGoodness, I hope the rains come soon. It’s dry here too but we have still had some. Though we watered the lawn the other day in the desire to begin to green it up in preparation to put the cottage on the garden. Something we normally never have to do at this time of year.
ReplyDeleteI gotta say I’m not looking forward to dealing with ticks once we move. Ugh! Not something we have here, though all our snakes will kill you pretty fast so pythons will make for an interesting addition.
Xx
Pythons don't seem to mind people at all. Just don't step on them by accident though, or they will bight out of defense. Not poisonous, but still very painful. We like our pythons. We hear the bigger ones can deter the browns.
DeleteRegarding ticks, get yourself a pair of tick tweezers. They're fairly inexpensive. I should do a post about them. We wasted too many years pulling off tick heads with regular tweezers. But tick tweezers pull them out (head in tact) no worries!
It's really frustrating when the rain storms pass close by and miss you. In UK we have had a hot dry summer and we had no rain for 10 weeks along the South Coast, not anywhere near as dry as you I hope your rain comes soon.
ReplyDeleteThe Northern Hemisphere has the benefit of snowfall during winter, so some moisture is at least guaranteed early in spring. But still 10 weeks without rain, during summer, will still effect the flora. Isn't the weather fickle sometimes.
DeleteOur problem critter here is deer. But they don't necessarily wait until they're starving to come help themselves to the garden! :(
ReplyDeleteIt's hard being in a situation where rain skirts you by. We typically have an extensive droughty spell and have to watch the rain storms skirt around us. This summer has been a blessing with adequate rainfall and not so hot temperatures. But I won't assume it's going to be a regular thing! The weather is indeed fickle.
We're fortunate not to get the kind of deer numbers you experience in the US. We only have a small mob of kangaroos. Plus they would eat less for their smaller size too. So generally, much easier to live with. :)
DeleteWe have a storm passing overhead as I write Chris. Nice rain, but the worst of the storm went around us. Hail in town though, it looks to be about the size of golf balls from what I have seen on the web. Glad we missed out on that.
ReplyDeleteWe haven't had roos or wallabies here since we fenced the front boundary a couple of years back (or longer), though we did leave the gate open one night last month and found we had a cow in the front paddock!
We got a bit of rain the day after writing this post. However, because the ground is so dry, it didn't do much to green things up. Still, it was nice to see the rain pop by, even for a little. LOL at the cow. Must be good eating at your place!
DeleteLovely to see you sharing your garden. The roos do seem to adapt, have had non-native things grow undisturbed for a couple of years then they are discovered. I have seen them eating the sap from black wattle trees.
ReplyDeleteWell that's something new to me - and we do get the black wattle as well. Thanks for sharing Clare. :)
ReplyDelete