All Creatures Great and Small

The good lord loves them all.

Apologies to Mr Herriot for stealing that title, but regular readers of my personal blog will know that I've long had an interest in all kinds of living creatures.

We actively encourage wildlife to our backyard, especially native birds, who are congregated on the back verandah as I write this, and brushtail possums, who like to walk across our roof late at night in their hobnail boots. At this time of year, with the trees starting to bloom, we're getting nightly visits from fruit bats, with their beady little eyes that glow red in the torchlight.

At the beginning of this year, Jess, my oldest stepdaughter, joined an organisation called BARN the Brisbane Area Rescue Network, and became a volunteer wildlife carer. My wife Donna and I have been planning to do the same thing for a while. With Jess away on holidays and us baby-sitting the animals she has in care at our place, we thought it was time we joined BARN and became carers ourselves.

At the moment we have two young brushtail possums here, Lucky is the oldest and currently weighs about 300g. He's living in a cocky cage until he gets bigger, when he'll be moved to an aviary outside. Mogwai the youngest is living in a cat carrier at the moment. That's when he's not snuggled up in my jacket pocket, or peeing on my lap.

We also have Willy, a blind carpet snake. Willy was attacked by birds a couple of months ago and lost an eye as a result. We're pretty sure he can't see out of the remaining one. It doesn't stop him feeding though. Talk about flip top head.

Last but not least, we have a blue tongue skink. I'm pretty sure Jess calls her Fatso, but I'll have to check up on that. Fatso was originally being kept illegally as a pet by someone that overfed her. As a result she was way overweight. She's slimmed down a bit since Jess has been looking after her. It's amazing what you can do with a healthy diet and a bit of exercise.

So why am I writing this blog?

There are a couple of blogs out there written by carers, but not many. There certainly aren't any written by people that have only just started. People who are just getting used to being scratched and peed on as part of their daily routine.

I hope you'll get as much out of reading this blog as I know I will writing it. If you're a carer, you may see a bit of yourself in what I write. If you're thinking of becoming a carer, hopefully this will be the encouragement you'll need to get started. If you're just interested in cute little critters, then there'll be something here for you too.

Be warned though, I'm not going to hold back with the sad stuff. Not all animals survive when they're in care, I'll be writing about all facets of being a carer, not just the happy stuff.

I'll also try to put a lot of photos on here too and I'll be adding links to various wildlife related sites as I find them. If you have a website you'd like linked, let me know and I'll be glad to add it.