Thought I’d offer something a bit different for the weekend: two of my husband David’s short wildlife videos taken on bushwalks in our region. These are very recent and show two faces of wildlife spring here: a young spotted-tail quoll venturing out, and a carpet snake(or diamond python)coming out into the sunshine after hibernation. Both videos are pretty amazing, and shot just with a small digital camera with a very good optical zoom.

Quolls, which are mainland Australia’s largest native carnivorous marsupials, aren’t rare exactly but they are not common either and around here they are mainly found in the gorge country where there are plenty of places to hide. People rarely see them as they are mainly nocturnal, but clearly this youngster doesn’t know quoll protocol yet 🙂 Isn’t it just gorgeous!

Meanwhile, carpet snakes, as they are commonly known, are found both east and west of the Great Divide–and in this case, on the Great Divide, as this impressive specimen was in the gorge country too. They are non-poisonous snakes but can still inflict a nasty bite–it’s recommended to get a tetanus shot if you get bitten. Despite how close up it looks, David kept a respectful distance away, but the snake wasn’t bothered by him at all anyway.