Saturday, January 18, 2014

Visit to the park

Last weekend, Ivan and I had a lovely breakfast together with friends Donna and Graham.  We met up at Queen's Park in Ipswich and then had a little walk around our local wildlife sanctuary.

 This little Swamp Wallaby was enjoying the cool shade, while this amazing black swan had a dip in the pond.

 I love the local reptiles and these water dragons enjoy the sun and a bit of cool shade when it gets too hot.

 In the trees above the sanctuary are a colony of endangered bats.  Our heat wave last week - +45 degrees centigrade, caused total devastation.  These tiny little vulnerable animals were wiped out with over 1200 bats dying in just 24 hours.   As these are amazing little fruit bats and a colony of brown bats - it was sad to talk to the local wildlife volunteers who spent the weekend clearing the sanctuary and finding volunteers to try and save some of the babies.

 Extreme summer temperatures in Australia are not only causing problems for people, but fires and heat are even affecting the local indigenous animals.

And of course the day wouldn't have been perfect without a photo of the boys - Ivan and Graham.

2 comments:

Davine said...

Great post - that is so sad that all the bats died.

Red said...

This looks like a great place to go and spend some time. Sad that the ts died as they are a very valuable species.