Working at night-time and hearing some rustling in the leaves last night drew me outside to investigate. A possum watched me from up in his tree... and a quick spotlight revealed the above photo. After 18 months of living in Mt Helena, we finally have QUENDA in our backyard! What is a Quenda? It is the local Noongar word for the Southern Brown Bandicoot (Isoodon obesulus), a small marsupial which provides a rare example of a native mammal coping with human changes to the environment. I first saw Quenda when they arrived at my parents' house in Parkerville more than 15 years ago now, and in my experience they have expanded their population since. Even though we had seen Quenda about 500m from our Mt Helena house, the number of stray cats and dogs passing through our property prevented them from living here at the time we moved in. But by deterring these threats and providing native shrubs for habitat we seem to have made the place suitable again.
Here's a quick video of the Quenda in our yard. Such an awesome feeling to have NATIVE MAMMALS sharing your space :-D
Quenda on Camera from Simon Cherriman on Vimeo.
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