Whodunit ?

This neat little hole in a garden bed beside our front path caught our attention the other day. The question was: who made it? The hoped-for Long-nosed Bandicoot was an unlikely candidate, despite being recorded in the district – the hole was smooth-sided, conical and not very deep. A family of White-winged Choughs is regularly around the garden, tossing mulch everywhere, but this didn’t seem to fit with their diggings. Ravens, currawongs and ibis are busy digging out in the paddocks, but they’re far too wary to come close to the house.

One clue was the several overturned rocks around the border of the garden bed where the hole was. A sure sign in our experience that a Short-beaked Echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) had been around searching for ants. Another look at the hole seemed to confirm our suspicion since it neatly matched the shape of the echidna’s snout. And an echidna was seen not far away strolling around the vegie patch and sniffing the air the next day. The photo at right was taken earlier in the year at our front steps.