Not so hard after all. All
got to a bear. Paul Tay was quick off the mark with a Sun Bear, and Paul
Ty got the actual subject, being the photogenic ursid at the National Zoo and
Aquarium.
I had a couple of hours to fill
in yesterday so went to the Bot Gdns but found this full of rampaging fourth
formers more keen on social inter-action than studying the flora, so thought I’d
drop into the NZA. The Sun Bear had got hold of a Brush-tailed Possum
which was an enormous treat, not only for its snack value but for the games it
offered, like lying on its back, holding the tail in its hind-claw and sucking the
partly-skinned front part. I have spared the chatline the snaps of the
actual ex-possum, although veteran ANBG owl-watchers will be hardened to such
sadder aspects of the cycle of life. According to the management the
possum event does happen occasionally, as many possums scuttle along
the enclosure fences, no doubt attracted by the surplus fodder.
This also attracts various
birds, the zoo being a reliable spot for double-bars, as well as the source of
such LBG rarities, chatline members will recall, as the Egyptian Goose. A
fair showing of peafowl, but not quite as many, or as animated, as in Upper
Narrabundah.
Of particular interest, I
thought, was the number of magpies, at least 20, in the Invisible Cheetah
enclosure. These were attracted by the remains of the breakfast of some
carnivore, possibly the Invisible Cheetah itself, although the many confusing
signs erected by the management tantalising leave open the possibilities that
there might or might not be such an animal as a cheetah (bearing in mind that
the Canberra Times, with its notorious inaccuracy on wildlife matters, recently
published a photo of a leopard as a purported ‘cheetah’ –
Monday, August 18, p5).
