Place: My parent's house, Victoria, Australia.
Date: January 4, 2011.
Camera: Panasonic TZ3.
Koalas aren't especially known for their athletic ability -- they mainly spend their time in gum trees sleeping, eating eucalyptus leaves and, well, sleeping. (According to wikipedia, they are motionless for 16 to 18 hours a day!)
But yesterday I spied one racing so fast across my mother's garden he'd give Usain Bolt a run for his money!
Half-an-hour earlier he had been hanging out in a rose sheoak, a tree he'd mistakenly climbed when he'd heard us in the garden. The poor little blighter was very young -- perhaps his first outing away from mummy koala -- and our presence had probably confused and disturbed him. To get out of danger, he simply raced up the nearest tree instead of a gum tree.
Once we'd left him to his own devices, he waited until it was safe, clambered down and then sprinted across the lawn in the direction of some native bushland. Honestly, he went like a rocket!
He then posed for photographs in a nearby blue gum.
What a sweetie. I hope we didn't terrify him too much.
