I’m quite lucky in that where I live there are wild koala’s. Occasionally we see them at night, more often we hear them and even more rarely we see them in the day.
Apart from looking so cute their mannerisms are just so funny – basically they just couldn’t be stuffed! With anything! Even getting off the road, and having to walk through wet grass is a bit of an effort – witness this guy on the road at about 4am mid March this year.
My funniest memory was one my daughter and I saw at about 9 o’clock one night – he was at the base of a very large Tallowood tree and was startled by our approaching car – he spread his arms out really wide to try and grab the girth of the very large tree and then tried to hoist himself up — after about 3 goes it was just too much and he hadn’t even got off the ground, so he just sat there.
Despite their cute look their sound though is something to put the fear of god through you – check out this one I recorded years ago at Billabong Sanctuary in Townsville
Not all encounters are this interesting though – and there’s nothing sadder than finding a dead one on the road 🙁 So please when you’re driving leave room for the unexpected. Sorry about my language in this video, but it was just heart breaking