Birthday treat

It seems some wildlife around Flowerdale is getting very hungry and very bold lately. Our last post was on a Common Pheasant hanging around the back door of a Flowerdale farmhouse, and now we have the case of a Brush-tailed Phascogale (Phascogale tapoatafa) turning up at Trent and Vikki’s side door, scurrying around late in the morning, much to their astonishment.

They were actually celebrating their son Jarrah’s birthday and, although they wouldn’t normally feed wild animals, they couldn’t resist offering the phascogale some birthday lunch chicken, which was greedily consumed as they watched fascinated from the doorway.

The phascogale looks large enough to be an adult and, since all adult males would have succumbed to stress-induced disease by now, we can assume that this was a lactating female, hungry enough to be out foraging during the day.