This morning when I went for my 5k run, my wife took Scully out for a walk. I got back home and had just had my shower and changed, when she phoned me. She said that she’d just seen a “kangaroo”, in the park right across the street from our place. It had emerged from the bushland around the creek there and come right up to her and Scully, to within a couple of metres, and then took off back into the brush. I said it probably wasn’t a kangaroo, but most likely a swamp wallaby.
There are a few populations of these guys in bushland a bit further out towards the outskirts of the city, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard of them being this close to the city centre. I searched online, and the only reference I could find to wallabies being in this area was in this document from North Sydney Council, which says (Section 2.1.8, page 22):
Other notable wildlife returns to North Sydney over the past decade include the Swamp Wallably [sic], Superb Lyre-bird and the Long-nosed Bandicoot.
The report was written in 2021, so presumably the wallabies have been in the area since some time in the 2010s. I don’t know how they would have got here, because although there are pockets of bushland that could sustain a small population, they’re well separated from any other bushland by large tracts of heavily populated suburban development, that I doubt wallabies could or would travel through.
I spent some more time today preparing for our japan trip. I printed out a bunch of bookings and also maps for my wife to navigate around Tokyo to various places, while I’m working.
I also had three ethics classes. I got a message from one parent about one of the students in one of tonight’s classes. He enjoys the class but wants to free up time for other classes, so will be leaving. This was a bit sad because this kid was my longest running student, having been enrolled continuously since January 2022, over three years! I don’t know who the next longest running student is, but I have records and will work it out another day.
New content today: