Wildlife Bush Babies & Snake Rescue Tasmania

23/01/2025

23/01/2025

14/01/2025

14/01/2025

With the new year upon us we are hoping to convince wildlife lovers everywhere to add water for wildlife!

Why? Because many animals live for a good bath.

For birds, if you wear the same outfit everyday for a year it needs the best maintenance possible.

Bird bathing plays an important role in feather maintenance. Beyond preserving feathers over the long term, bathing even makes a bird a more agile flier and more adept at escaping predators in the short term.

Feathers are a bird’s lifeline: they insulate, waterproof and, of course, provide the power of flight.

Feathers get replaced once or twice a year. In the interim, they need to be kept in good condition. The sun, feather-munching mites, bacteria and gradual wear take a toll on feathers. A set of year-old flight feathers look like they’ve been through the wringer: they are frayed and dull.

So bathing, both water and dust, are essential for the fashionable healthy resident birds throughout the world including young Australian Magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen).

This is just another reason to keep water for wildlife top of mind if you want to make our suburban habitats more wildlife friendly. We have a number of posts on our timeline about how to best supply fresh water if you want to know more

More info on birds bathing 🔽
https://blog.nature.org/2015/03/09/backyard-bird-baths-science-birding-wildlife-habitat/

Are you convinced yet?

14/01/2025

Want something fun to do which can provide support for native reptiles? Maybe try a gecko guest house or blue tongue bungalow.

It can be as big or small as you like and doesn’t need expensive garden accessories. It’s all about recycling and using your imagination.

To create a backyard lizard lodge, you can provide shelter, food, water, and a safe space from predators:

🔴 Shelter
Include PVC or clay pipes, old clay pots and bricks as sheltering spots for lizards alongside branches, logs and rocks. Well placed larger flat basking rocks is also great in the garden as somewhere for lizards to sun themselves. Place these shelters near dense bushes or other cover so lizards can quickly hide if a predator appears.

🟠Food
Plant a variety of native plants that produce fruit and nectar, such as berry-producing shrubs, banksia, grevillea, and bottlebrush . You can also compost vegetable scraps to attract insects and snails for lizards to eat.

🔵Water
Provide a shallow, clean bowl of water in a protected spot. Skinks may use the water bowl every day in the summer. You can also include a pond in your garden to encourage insects and frogs.

🟣 Safe space
Keep cats and dogs away from that part of your garden.

🟢Avoid chemicals
Avoid using chemicals, pesticides, non-organic fertilizers, or snail pellets in your garden. If a lizard eats a poisoned bug or snail, it can become sick and die.

You can check with your local nursery for native plants that lizards will like which suit your climate and local habitat.

Have fun with it!

14/01/2025

This is the time of the year when you might see what appears to be horrible bullying and intimidation by adult Australian magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen)of the children they were just a few weeks ago lovingly feeding. They are not trying to injure the children, they are just letting them know it’s time to move out. What happens to the children?

Normally before 2 years of age and for many much much younger, magpies are forced by their parents to leave the territory. They join a group until they can gain a place in a territory as an adult breeding bird.

Life is hard for Australian Magpies. Like us, they need to meet basic needs for food, water and shelter. The main quest in their lives is to achieve home ownership – their own territory. Magpies are sexually mature after their first moult (age 1 year) but they cannot get straight into breeding then. On moving out of (or being ejected from) their natal home they join flocks of juveniles and bachelors. These flocks feed together on country not held by established groups. For many, this is where they will remain for life.

There are other categories of marginal and mobile bands of magpies without established territories but flocking magpies tend to be the largest groups. These flocks generally comprise up to around 30 birds.

Flock sizes vary with the seasons and conditions. Professor Gisela Kaplan, Professor of Animal Behaviour at the University of New England and expert in Australian Magpies indicates unattached juveniles cannot land in occupied territories. They tend to congregate in pastures and may have to keep moving if they want to find food.

Some will find territories and pair up like their parents did others stay single and continue to remain in these flocks.

As you can see, life for Australian magpies is complicated and every single individual will lead a different life according to their individual nature, circumstance and location.

📸 Cause for Paws 101

14/01/2025

Looking for a fun and meaningful project this summer? Why not create an artificial possum drey!

Using wire hanging baskets and coconut fibre linings, you can mimic the cosy, safe environment of a possum’s natural home.

These dreys are simple and quick to make, and once completed, they can be hung in your backyard or donated to your local WIRES branch to help provide shelter for our furry friends.

Get creative and support wildlife this summer ⤵️
https://bit.ly/3gLANKZ

22/11/2024

22/11/2024

Bee and butterflies 🦋 water station for your backyard

22/11/2024

With the warmer weather… remember to place fresh water out for out furred and feathered native animals