Gibson’s World

This year, I have read a lot of books on animals n the places we’ve been, and have seen lots of animals. So far, I’ve read books on animals in Australia, Thailand, Bhutan, India, and New Zealand. They’ve all been interesting, but one of the books I have enjoyed this year is New Zealand Wildlife.

New Zealand Wildlife is a field guide, or a non-fiction reference book, about the birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fish and invertebrates of New Zealand. I think it was a good book because it described so many different types of animals instead of just birds or just mammals, or just reptiles. The book also good pictures and described the animals well.

My favorite part of the book was the section on reptiles and amphibians. It was really fun to learn about what frogs or lizards we might be able to see on the Milford Track or in the Bay of Islands. I also liked looking through the mammals part, except there were only 34 mammals (just two that are native to New Zealand).

If I could only see one animal in New Zealand, I would probably want to see a tuatara. I learned that tuataras’ fossils have been dated back to 225 million years ago, and they are the only animal today that has survived from the period of dinosaurs. The only problem is that tuataras are very hard to see because they are restricted to some islands off of New Zealand and they’re nocturnal. We did go to one of these islands, but didn’t see a tuatara.

If you are into New Zealand wildlife (not that many people are), you should definitely read New Zealand Wildlife by Terence Lindsey and Rod Norris. It was a really helpful guide for me to use to identify and learn about all of the animals I saw in New Zealand.

While I was in Australia, I got to see what life is like on a cattle station there and met 2 kids named Ben and Franzie who lived on one.   This essay shows what it’s like to live on a cattle station.

A cattle station is a huge farm with lots of cows. Some can even reach 5 million acres and can have up to 1OO,OOO cows! At Bullo River Station, they have a helicopter, a plane, lots of 4 wheelers for herding cattle, a runway, and lots of animals.

School for them on a cattle station is really interesting. They have one room, for two, one teacher, occasional trips to other cities for school, and classmates by using the internet and School of the Air.

Besides school, they do lots of interesting things like climbing trees, hunting wallabies (poor wallabies), riding motorcycles, doing some work on the station, and playing with their pets. They have a black-headed python, 2 birds, 2 cats, and a dog named Boss for pets.  They also don’t play any sports.

They don’t have many friends nearby, since it is a 3 hour drive to the closest city, but they do have friends on the internet, which they have only met in person a few times. Their also have friends that are visitors and the people who work on the cattle station.

If I lived on a cattle station, I would like playing outside, climbing trees, riding the 4-wheelers, and looking for birds, reptiles, mammals, and going fishing on the river they have on their property. I wouldn’t like being in a school room by myself or with Sterling for 6-8 hours a day.  Also, I wouldn’t like that it’s hard to play team sports, that I wouldn’t have any friends nearby besides Sterling, and every night having to worry about the python coming into my room and eating me .  I think it would be really interesting to live on a cattle station.

The King Brown Snake is one of the most venomous snakes in the world and also one of the most dangerous.  They’re shy, but aggressive if angered, and they strike rapidly.  This picture (left) is of an adult King Brown that I took from the book on reptiles I used in Australia called Australian Reptiles.

Adult King Browns are usually around 2 meters long and their upper body is brownish-black colored. Also, their belly is white to tannish colored.  Unlike skinks, which they evolved from, they do not change colors in the wild.  

The King Brown is found mostly throughout Western Australia and the Northern Territory. They are usually found in woodlands, grassy plains, and deserts, which Australia has lots of.  They’re hard to find since they’re mainly nocturnal, but they can found in the day in the cooler months trying to get warm.

The King Brown usually lays from 11 to 16 eggs at a time, and hatchlings are usually around 25 centimeters long.   They eat small mammals, birds, frogs, and reptiles including other snakes.  A King Brown can also eat any other venomous snakes because the venom doesn’t hurt them. 

I didn’t see a King  Brown in Australia in the wild, but I wish I had.  I did see one in a Venomous Zoo, though.  The King Brown is one of my favorite snakes and I want to come back to Australia to see one in the wild.

Food in Australia is kind of the same and kind of different compared to food in the U.S.  They eat a lot of the same foods but also eat kangaroo, wallaby, and crocodile.  They will even eat some of the same foods and give it a different name, like Rice Krispies there are “Rice Bubbles.  Another thing everybody eats  is a vanilla cake with chocolate and coconut on the outside.  I didn’t try it, but my Dad tried it and thought it was good.  I thought the food in Australia was really good, especially the fish and chips. 

Koalas are one of my favorite animals.  A newborn koala is the size of a bean, weighs 1/2 gram, and is only 2 cm. long.  An adult Victorian koala usually weighs from 17-26 lbs. and a Queensland koala usually weighs from 11-15 lbs.  When a baby koala is born, it stays attached to a nipple for 13 weeks and opens its eyes after 22 weeks.  The baby koala comes out of its mother’s pouch after one year.   

An adult male is 50% heavier than a female adult.  During one day, a koala will spend just under 20 hours sleeping, four hours eating or grooming, and 1% changing trees, climbing, or finding a mate.  When a koala eats, first it picks a eucalyptus leave and puts it in its mouth.  Then, it grinds the leaf up with its molars before swallowing it.   Koalas are one of the only animals that eat eucalyptus, because it is so poisonous. Since the koala eats eucalyptus, a poisonous leaf, it doesn’t have much energy.

When a koala is in a tree while it’s raining, it will curl up in a ball and let the rain run off its condensed and waterproof fur.  They will also curl up in a ball to keep warm. The koala’s hands are unusual because they have 5 fingers and 2 thumbs. They are also interesting because they aren’t really bears.

In Australia, I have seen a bunch of koalas so far in the wild and in the zoo and they are really cool to see!!

Wombats are really interesting and cute animals. They’re quick learners, playful, and smart. They live in forests and woodlands and are nocturnal. Their main threat is cars and trucks because when they cross roads and feel the vibration of a car coming, they will curl up in a ball and stop with their hard pad on their bottom facing the car and then they get killed by an amazingly violent convertible. When a feral cat attacks them, they will go into their burrow, let the cat hang onto them, drag the cat into their burrow, and smash it on the ceiling until it dies. Ha ha — one down, a lot more to go.  Wombats will spend two thirds of their lifetime underground even though they’re a close relative of the koala who lives in trees.  Wombats are one of the world’s largest burrowers and some of their burrows can be 30 yards deep. They can weigh from 40 to 80 pounds and run up to 25 mph for short distances! There are less than 100 hairy nosed wombats, but wombats are protected in every Australian state except eastern Victoria.

Sydney is a really cool city and it has a lot of interesting things like the Olympic Stqdium, the aquarium, the zoo, the opera house, the bridge, the Tower, the Blue Mountains, and the Australian Museum.  It’s my favorite city so far on the trip :-). 

When we went to the aquarium, we saw a lot of cool animals and fish.  My favorite animal was the platypus.  We saw him do flips in the water.  I learned that male playypuses have venomous spurs and they can kill other animals that threaten them.  The platypus is a monotreme and it lays eggs.  We also saw sharks, crocodiles, and other fish.

We took a ferry and a tram to the zoo, and we saw lots of things including koalas, spotted quolls, giraffes and wombats .  My favorite was the koala.  We saw the koalas jump and walk around a lot.  And I got a really good video of them.  We learned that koalas aren’t bears, but are marsupials.  The wombat was really funny because he was hiding his head under leaves.  The zoo was my favorite thing that I did in Sydney.

When we went to the Blue Mountains, we saw kangaroos and fed Crimson Rosellas.  The kangaroos were wild, but really well-behaved.  We got about four feet away from them.  Crimson Rosellas are a type of parrot.  I was feeding one of the Rosellas out of my hand when it flew away and left me with a cut on my hand.

The Australian Museum had lots of really interesting things.  I liked the rocks, minerals and gems section the best.  One of my favorite rocks was the zebra rock (right), which looks like a piece of meat but is a natural rock that nobody painted! 

From the Tower in Sydney, you can see a long way.  You can see the 2000 Olympic Stadium, the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, and lots more.  On the left is a picture of the Olympic Stadium that I took from the top of the Tower.  The Olympic Stadium has the biggest capacity of any Olympic stadium ever. 

[The Harbour Bridge below]                         [The Tower below]