We love animals.  Today we will visit Featherdale Wildlife Park.

Featherdale Wildlife Park

Seeing the animals native to Australia will be fascinating.  There are so many kinds of marsupials here, animals with pouches.  This is a wildlife park, so the animals are in enclosures, but the enclosures are large and humans can touch and feed some animals.   Upon entering we were entertained by these wombats.

Wombats

Aren’t they cute?  These animals look like miniature kangaroos, but the sign said they are Red Necked Pademelon.

Feeding small kangaroo like animal. A red necked pademelon

Soapy’s mom is feeding them.   There are several places in the park to purchase approved food for the animals.   We purchased food several times.   This Red Necked Pademelon came to see the Colorado Traveling Ducks.

Red Necked Pademelon

She has a baby in her pouch.   A really colorful bird, the Southern Cassowary is the heaviest of all Australia’s birds.

Southern Cassowry

He has blade like claws and is capable of killing.   He is also capable of swallowing a whole mango.   The Southern Cassowary is an amazing bird.   We like his helmet, too.   In the United States our pelicans are white.

Australian pelicans

Here we have black and white pelicans.   The moms just loved the koalas, so we paid to go in a special area so they could pet and touch this koala.

Petting koala

The koala has thick, soft fur.   Good thing they cannot take animals into Colorado, or I think they might have brought him home.  The Little Penguins are wonderful.

Little penguins

We like animals that are not so much bigger than we are.  These are the smallest penguins in the world.   The sign says some even live under Manly wharf.   We visited Manly but did not see them that day.   Mom and I saw them 14 years ago on Phillips Island, near Melbourne.

Little penguins

We love these little penguins.   You may have heard of the Dingo Fence in Australia’s center, near the opal mines of Coober Pedy.   Mom and I, Zeb the Duck, saw it  years ago.   We were told the Dingo fence is the longest structure in the world, longer than China’s Great Wall.   The fence was necessary to keep the Dingos, Australia’s wild dogs away from the cattle and sheep.   But the Dingo we saw today, was calm and seemed like a dog that could live in our house.

Dingo

The sign told some differences between domestic dogs and dingos.  Dingos do not bark.   That would be nice sometimes.   And the Dingo only breeds once a year.   The short beaked echidna eats termites and other ant species.   A sign told us the female incubates one egg in her pouch.

Short Beaked Echidna

The baby echidna is called a puggle.  A new name for a baby animal to us.  The rest of our group left after a couple hours, but we loved the animals and had not seen all of them.   So we stayed for the entire day, taking a taxi to our hotel.  We stayed until the park closed.   The snack area had outside seating, so we enjoyed a quick lunch.

Lunch

My mom wanted a hot dog and Soapy’s mom wanted chili cheese fries.   Not really sure what all was on those fries, but the moms were happy.

Uninvited lunch guest

We had a visitor, or a beggar, join us for lunch.   There were many signs asking visitors not to feed the birds.   So, sorry, no food for you big bird.   After lunch we continued exploring.

Ghost Bat

The ghost bat is Australia’s largest carnivorous bat.   And he is only 200-240 mm in size.   Next we saw a Bilby.

Bilby

These are rare and live in central deserts, including those near the Kimberly in Western Australia and those of Southwest Queensland.   This Bilby was not interested in seeing us.   Now one of my favorites.

Tasmanian Devil

The Tasmanian Devil.   He came to meet us.   Four years ago in Tasmania, we saw some Tasmanian Devils and were told they have a disease that could threaten their existence.   These all looked healthy and we were happy to see that.  The Tasmanian Devils were being fed and this guy showed his sharp teeth between taking bites.

Tasmanian devil

We think he is our friend. And a Goodfellows Tree Kangaroo.

Goodfellows Tree Kangaroo

We had never seen one of these nocturnal animals.   He is interesting to see.   Here is a Southern Hairy Nosed Wombat.

Southern Harry nosed Wombat

The young stay in the pouch for 6-9 months and are weaned at one year of age.   The pouch of the wombat faces backward to avoid collecting dirt in it while digging burrows.   We are sure the baby wombats appreciate that.  Here is a tall bird.

Emu

The emu stands about 2 meters tall.   The female lays the eggs and that is the end of her parental duties.   The male takes over all parental duties, including the incubation of the eggs.   This small guy is a wonder.

Splendid Tree Frog

The Splendid Tree Frog lives near the Kimberly Region of Western Australia.   And we learned that frogs pull their eyes back into their head to help squish the food in their mouth.   This last one we will show you is rather frightening.

Inland Taipan

The inland taipan grows up to two meters long.   It is rare in Queensland, and presumed extinct in New South Wales and Victoria.   The Inland Taipan is considered the world’s most venomous snake.   That is one Australian creature we really don’t want to see in the wild.   As you noticed, we really love the animals and learned so much at Featherdale Wildlife Park.   We spent much of the day feeding kangaroos and admiring koalas.   We hope you visit Featherdale Wildlife Park when you are in Sydney.   Especially if you are not visiting other areas in Australia where you could see these animals in their natural habitat.  Our moms can’t resist showing a couple more photos of some favorites.

Koala

Koalas sleep most of the day and night, but they are just adorable.   And a favorite pastime at the park.

Feeding kangaroo like animal

Soapy’s mom is feeding another small, kangaroo like animal.   There are a lot of photos in this post, but we have over 250 photos of the animals.   I know…Humans    But this is just to cute not to share with you.

Just too cute

The animals are waiting for you to visit.   And buy them some treats.