The Great Oz Eddventure #21 - Book Worm

Wow, so there is so much to learn about this down under inside out unique world.  I am finding myself reading more books in the last few months than I have in the last few years!  There is so much to learn from indigenous history to the variety of wildlife - it is all so fascinating!

The Great Oz Eddventure #20 - First Wild Snake Encounter

Working at Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve I am very priviliged to encounter a variety of native animals in their natural wild habitat.  One of those animals is the red belly black snake, known for it's highly venom bite.  Because of this I was fairly apprehensive about seeing one, but I knew, like with most animals, that they are more afraid of you then you are of them.  And that is true, as you can observe, respect and enjoy them from a moderate distance away watching them move away into the bush...

The are a joy to watch as their black is such an amazing vibrant colour, and they can be seen on occassion swiming through the wetlands! 

The Great Oz Eddventure #19 - Secret life of Wombats

A couple of weeks ago I was recommended the book the 'Secret life of Wombats', which fortells the story of a young boy that went into the burrows of wombats for his own personal research.  This sounded an amazing concept so I had to read the book, and it is excellent.

Not only does it tell the story of the wombat boy, Peter Nicholson, but also the history of the wombat from it's fossilised ancestry through to how the first European settlers attempted to classify it!

A very worthwhile and rewarding book!

Emu silhouette

Graduating Marsupials

Our new volunteer recruits will soon have finished all their training and become interpreters for the nature reserve.  We are holding a graduation ceremony for them and so I designed the above koala and kangaroo to go on their invitations.

Kangaroo silhouette

The Great Oz Edventure #18 - Tasmania Devils

We have just been to Tasmania, and I must say it is a beautiful place.  The landscapes change from rainforests up in Cradle Mountain to various dry desolate suburbs, where the colours change remarkably to reflect this.  There was plenty of wildlife around to keep us occupied with - pademelons, possums, and even fairy penguins coming to shore at Bicheno.  I was hoping to come across some Tasie Devils, but with their numbers in decline we unfortunately weren't lucky to spot them.

However, we did see one when we visited Featherdale Wildlife Park in Sydney, and here is a picture of him:

 

The Great Ox Eddventure #17 - Wallaby Cross Fostering part 2

Click here to read part 1

Since I saw the cross fostering operation at Tidbinbilla where I work, I have been wondering how the Southern Brush Tail Wallaby knows that he/she is a Brush Tail and not a Yellow Footed Rock Wallaby like it's Foster mother.

Well, at the weekend I joined our volunteer's training program and got a look behind the scenes at the Captive Breeding Building where the foster wallabys are with their fostered joeys.

Hear I heard that when the joeys leave their foster mother's pouch, the staff collect the joeys and place them altogether in their own enclosure.  That way all the Brush Tails are together and all grow up together, so have no lingering thoughts of being a Yellow Footed Rock Wallaby.

And the foster mother?  She is now ready to take on board another Brush Tail joey and the cycle continues..

The Great Oz Eddventure #16 - Pizza Time

I couldn't resist making myself a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle for my blog post about pizza.  Please ignore the splodgy effect of my black pen, as I made this picture whilst waiting at Sydney's Harbour edge on New Years Eve for the fireworks, so this is all I could manage in my sketchbook.

Anyway, it is incredible that we have travelled half way across the world, and we have found two restaurants that create the most amazing gourmet style pizzas that we have ever had.  So I thought I would recommend them here for anyone looking for pizza in Canberra.

They are Debacle and Caffe Ravello.  I will say that Debacle has 2 for 1 on Monday and Tuesdays! 

So you may see us in either of them in the near future...!

Captain Cockatoo

Here is another Australian character I have created.  I find cockatoos fascinating, as they are so cute and cheeky, so I couldn't resist making this character - Captain Cockatoo!

Here is a picture of one on our terrace eating seeds that we have put out:

 

The Great Oz Eddventure #15 - Total Fireban

When the weather reaches a certain high temperature and has a certain wind speed the ACT government issues a total fireban so that small fires could not become a bush fire.

Working at Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve we have to follow this strictly, and actually close the reserve on total fireban days.  This is for public safety as there is only one way out of the reserve which would create a bottle neck should a fire occur.

I just thought that I would mention this as a lot of people were surprised why we were closed on Australia Day.

The ACT Squad

The ACT Squad are my Australian superheroes, specific to the Australian Capital Territory.  From left to right we have the Cockatoo, Possum Girl and Koala, all in front of the Parliament House.

I thought I would save this picture until today so that I could use it as a way to wish everyone a Happy Australia Day for tomorrow.

The Great Oz Eddventure #14 - Wallaby cross fostering

At work on Friday I was provided with a fantastic opportunity to witness a very extraordinary and spectactular event, which was called cross fostering, involving Rock Wallabys.

In the wild there are around 40 Brush Tailed Rock Wallabys left, and so this operation will hopefully help to revive the population numbers.

This is done through cross fostering, and I will attempt to outline a summary of what this means.  Once the Brush Tailed Rock Wallaby has a joey in it's pouch, the vet extracts it to place in the care of it's new foster mum, a Yellow Footed Rock Wallaby (notice that they are both breeds of Rock Wallaby so hopefully will result in a successful operation).  In order to do this the Yellow Footed must also have a young joey present (same size , weight etc as the Brush Tailed joey) so that milk is being generated for the new joey.  Under anaesthetic, the joeys are then exchanged so that the Yellow Footed will now just take care of the Brush Tailed joey.  Now the Brush Tailed mother has an empty pouch and still in motherhood mode, she will be placed back into the reserve in order to conceive again, so that more Brush Taileds can be generated - fantastic!

Not so fantastic, and I found very sad, is the fact that the Yellow Footed joey had to be euthanised.  Unfortunately I could not Edd Cross Foster this one!

I felt very privileged to see such a momentus occassion for the Brush Tails, and it was incredible to see the young joey(s), which just fit inside the vet's hands - they were so helpless and dependant and very cute.

Here is the Yellow Footed Rock Wallaby on the operating table.

Here the very small Brush Tailed Rock Wallaby joey is being placed into the pouch of the Yellow Footed foster mother, and with tweezers the vet is guiding the mother's teat towards the joey.

Logo for the Great Oz Eddventure

The Great Oz Eddventure #13 - Spiders

Here is another UK/Australia comparison - this time of spiders.  I have drawn a little friendly one, and one big mean angry one.  Can you guess which one represents spiders from UK and which one represents spiders from Australia?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Long Necked Turtle

I am now working at Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve which is a fantastic nature park in Canberra.  Everyday I get to see kangaroos and emus.  One day I saw a long necked turtle in one of the small lakes and I just had to make it of the Teenage Mutant Ninja variety!

The Great Oz Eddventure #12 - Research

With all the amazing wildlife there is here, I have taken full opportunity of our local library to find all the information about them that I can.  This has been a huge help in developing my Possum cartoon (and helping with my website developments...).

Birthday Koala

For my birthday, Hazel sponsored a Koala for me!  She is called Peach and lives at Featherdale Wildlife Park.

Her enclosure:

And (I think) this picture is of her:

Whilst at Featherdale we were also able to have a photo opportunity with a koala (this isn't Peach).

Then out came the sketchbook:

Back from New Year in Sydney!

Happy New Year everybody!
Here are a few sketches to kick off my blog for 2010.

Between Christmas and New Year we stayed in a little place called Kangaroo Valley, and I was inspired to sketch the view from our veranda:

In Sydney we went to see the amazing fireworks for New Year - and they were amazing!!  We settled in at our viewpoint at 3pm and then waited eagerly....
So this gave me a chance to sketch the view that we had of the Harbour Bridge:

And finally, on a beach - the exact view I had of my leg (and you can see the shadow that my sketchbook created!):

Merry Christmas!!

I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas from Oz!!

This is my Possum Christmas Present tag- please feel free to print it off and use it on all your presents! :-)

I also wish everyone a safe and wonderful New Year, and I will be back on my Blog here in Jan 2010 - so see you then!

The Great Oz Eddventure #11 - December

On the left we have how December would be if we were still in the UK.  But on the right is December in Australia!  Seems strange to being having bbqs so close to Christmas, but it is great!

From my Oz Sketchbook - Cockatoo

I just love cockatoos (nearly as much as possums!).  With their big cheeky eyes and perfect white feathers you have to admire them.

So as soon as I got home on this day I had to draw one!

The Great Oz Eddventure #10 - Possum Spotting

Because we love possums (just incase you hadn't worked that out by now!):

When we first arrived we had no idea what these little furry creatures were that were looking back at us from their tree branches!

Now that we know what they are, we are continuously playing 'possum spotting'!!  How many possums in the picture below can you see hiding out in the trees?

Work Xmas BBQ

On Friday night was our work Xmas BBQ.  I had designed and created the above image to go on our Christmas cards that we gave to all the volunteers that were there.

It was a fab evening getting to know everyone whilst having a good Ozzie BBQ!!  Thanks to my work buddies for organising such a great evening!

It was also encouraging to hear that some volunteers were impressed by my monthly Possum cartoon, and had even taken the time to look here on my blog - so a really BIG THANK YOU to you guys, it is really great to hear such positive feedback! 

The Great Oz Eddventure #9 - Canary Supporter a long way from Carrow Road

Being a Norwich City fan I usually travel to see them play once a month at Carrow Road while I was in the UK.  Now that I am in Oz, I am missing seeing them play, especailly as this season they are playing very well and it is a delight to see them winning games confidently again.

I therefore wanted to show this in cartoon form.  I have my canary (Norwich City are nicknamed the Canaries) perched on the edge of the branch, visiting my Australian animal cartoon characters (Cockaoo, Possum and Koala) with the delights of another win, hoping that they will continue to win for promotion.

And I thought I should add bit of yellow!:

The Great Oz Eddventure #8 - My Office at CVA

The Great Oz Eddventure #7 - Conservation Work

About a month ago I volunteered for a couple of days doing some conservation work, which was really rewarding. And it was from here that I learnt of the vacancy that I successfully filled.

After each day's volunteering I got the sketchbook out and made the following pictures:

On this project we were removing non-native bushes in preparation for planting in native ones. In teams of two, one person cut the bush, and the other applied poison to the stump. On the first day I carried the branches away.On day two I had a go at cutting and applying the poison. We were using saws and huge 'loppers' to cut the bushes. For the posion we had to wear elbow length thick rubber gloves. Having all this on me I felt as though I was starring in a horror movie..!!

Later on in the day I saw an interesting black spider with hints of silver on it. I learned that this was the deadly Wolf Spider, which inspired this picture!

Tango in Bundanoon mini-comic

The Great Oz Eddventure #6 - Shipping Arrived

Hoorah! I was so happy to finally receive my drawing board and art box!

The Great Oz Eddventure #5 - Guitar Hero Didgeridoo

The Great Oz Eddventure #4 - Part of the Mob

On this day I learnt that a group of kangaroos is called a mob, so I wanted to be a part of that mob!

The Great Oz Eddventure #3 - Welcome to Oz!