Hello everyone at Jigalong.
Yesterday, Monday, we walked out with Peggy to try and locate two echidnas with transmitters attached, that Peggy detected signals from with her aerial at our camp.  This meant that the echidnas were taking advantage of the fine but cool weather to leave their burrows or hiding spots and had gone out for a feed.  So off we went looking for the first one which we located in a stand of big mallee trees.  Unfortunately it had heard us coming and had gone down its burrow under the stump of a tree.  Mike McKelvey, a scientist and photographer/film maker, stuck a digital camera down the hole and took pictures in case the echidna wasn't to far inside the burrow - but no luck this time.

Back we walked from the woodland to the Lagoon (about 2km) to check on "Big Mumma" the other echidna that had been on the move. 

ACTIVITY: Peggy names the echidnas she catches, attaches transmitters to and studies.  If you are here and find a new one you get to name it.  I hope to find a new one and in case I do how about coming up with some names that might suit an echidna!

Down at the Lagoon, we let Peggy with her aerial and reciever walk a bit ahead (a group of teachers make a lot of noise!) and suddenly she ran and pounced on an object just about to disappear under the low branches of a mallee. 

She stood up and had a big basketball sized armful of spiny echidna!  We hurried over and gathered around while Peggy told us about "Big Mumma".

She is about 40 years old (echidnas live to about 50) and has been a mum many times, one time while being filmed for a wildlife documentary.  Echidnas only have one baby at a time and it may be two or three years between each egg laid.  The egg is kept in a pouch of sorts until it hatches and the puggle (that's what you call a baby echidna) is finally too big to be carried around.  Then the mum digs a burrow to leave it in while she's off feeding.  She seals the burrow before she goes and then she might not be back for 2 - 3 days.  One day when the baby echidna is old enough the mother just doesn't come back at all.

Anyway we weighed "Big Mumma" using a pink sack and a spring balance and she came to

 4129 grams or 4.1 kilograms.

Thats big for an echidna (usually they are around 3.5kg) and that why she's called "Big Mumma" but not "Fat Mumma" as one of the other teacher's mistakenly called her.

You might wonder why scientists need to learn all about the lives of an animal?  But it is important because if a particular animal starts to decline (there are less of them) it tells us that something is wrong within that environment.  It might be something wrong with the water, the air, the soil - all things that can affect us too!  So when we look out for the survival of other living things we are really looking out for our own survival.

WORD SEARCH: Find the meanings for MALLEE, LAGOON.

ACTIVITY: Miss Scott will demonstrate the use of a spring balance - can you read off the weight correctly?

ANIMAL STUDY - On Kangaroo Island the mammals are very friendly and they hang around the house where we have our meals and work over many cups of tea.  Find pictures and information (like where else do they live) about my furry mates -
             1) The Western Grey Kangaroo  2) The Tammar Wallaby 3)The Brushtail Possum

BYE from KI  (PS Thats my elbow on the right below!)