DAILY exercise habits sparked an idea for Macedon Ranges residents Tina Hardy and Monika Haller, who decided to explore the nightlife of wildlife and share their findings.
Ms Hardy and Ms Haller set up wildlife cameras at spots on their walking tracks, where they have seen burrows and homes of animals, like wombats.
Ms Hardy said the idea came to her while walking, when she showed Ms Haller a wombat burrow she had discovered.
“My friend and I started walking our dogs around my property a lot more with the advent of COVID-19,” Ms Hardy said.
“I knew of one wombat burrow and showed her it, then we started playing detective and discovered a lot more.
“One of them had been dug up a bit and I had an old wildlife camera, so I thought I’d put it in front of the burrow and see what happened.
“First couple of days were a bit disappointing with nothing coming up then there were four or five pictures and videos of two wombats, I was blown away.”
Ms Hardy said upon her observation of one of the wombats, who she named Wally, she discovered he had a mild case of mange.
She found a group online that could treat the mange for Wally.
“They supplied me with some treatment and a ‘flap’ which holds the treatment to go in front of his burrow,” Ms Hardy said
“I had to name him for them so I called him Wally Wombat. When I sent them the pictures of Wally, I also sent pictures of the other wombat and asked them to confirm that it didn’t have mange.
“They came back and said yep, she’s all good and she is probably carrying a joey in her pouch. As you can imagine, I was then completely hooked. She is called Wendy.”
Ms Hardy said after a few visits, she was able to see Wally fully recovered and gaining healthy weight.
“I had started posting some of the videos and pictures to my own Facebook page and people were loving it and loving each of the little personalities we were getting to know. Kangaroos, wallabies, kookaburras, possums, even pygmy possums, echidna and wombats of course.
“The feedback I was getting on my own page was incredible, people were sharing and commenting about how great it was to just see these guys doing their own thing in the wild and particularly at the moment with so much else going on.
“Wally was getting better, Wendy and her joey, Benny the Wallaby, Karen the Kangaroo and her joey and of course the echidna event.
“We decided the best way to show all of this was to set up its own Facebook page, so we did that last weekend and have loaded quite a bit – there is lots to come, though.”
To share in the nightlife of the animals, visit Wildlife Watching in the Ranges on Facebook.
