Coastal Animal Identification on NSW Trails

How can I tell a grey kangaroo from a wallaby on a trail?

A grey kangaroo stands taller and carries its weight on the whole foot, while a wallaby is smaller, often darker in the shoulder, and holds its head lower when it feeds. On a South Coast trail the quickest separation is posture and tail: kangaroos lean back on a thick tail and move in long, level bounds, wallabies keep the tail closer to the ground and bound in shorter arcs. If you are still unsure, the kangaroo wallaby differences come down to size, coat and the shape of the muzzle, and those three are readable from twenty metres with binoculars.

Start with the head. An eastern grey kangaroo has a small head relative to a deep chest and long, heavy hindquarters; the muzzle is fine and the ears are narrow. A swamp wallaby, the species most walkers meet in coastal scrub, has a shorter face, a broader muzzle and a distinct light stripe running down the thigh. Red-necked wallabies show a reddish patch across the shoulders and a pale stripe along the upper lip.

Then watch the shoulders. Kangaroos carry the shoulder line high and level when they stand and look at you. Wallabies tend to hunch, with the back rounded and the head lower than the hips. When they move, kangaroos push off both hind feet together and travel in a straight, unhurried line; wallabies weave, change direction quickly and often stop behind the first shrub.

Habitat narrows it further. Eastern grey kangaroos prefer open grass, forest edges and cleared paddocks, and they graze in mobs of five to twenty at dawn and dusk. Swamp wallabies live in dense understorey, fern gullies and tea-tree thickets, and they are usually alone or in twos. If you see an animal feeding in the open at midday, it is far more likely to be a kangaroo.

Size is the last check, not the first. A mature male eastern grey stands around 1.3 to 1.6 metres at the head and can weigh 60 kilograms or more. A swamp wallaby stands roughly 70 to 85 centimetres and rarely exceeds 20 kilograms. Do not approach either one to compare. Stay on the track, keep dogs on a lead, and let the animal move away first.

How do I recognise wombat burrows, droppings and koala signs?

Wombat burrows are the easiest large sign to read. Look for an oval entrance, wider than it is tall, usually 40 to 60 centimetres across, cut into a bank, a creek edge or the base of a tree. The soil around the mouth is packed and smooth from repeated passing, and you will often see scratch marks from the front claws on the lip of the hole. A single wombat may use several burrows, so a cluster of entrances in one gully usually means one animal, not many.

Wombat droppings are distinctive: short, blunt, cube-shaped pellets, roughly two centimetres across, deposited on flat rocks, logs or bare ground. They are often in loose piles rather than scattered, and fresh ones are dark and slightly glossy. Because wombats mark territory this way, a flat rock with a scatter of cubes is a reliable sign that a burrow is close.

Koala signs are harder. Koalas leave scratch marks on the smooth bark of preferred feed trees, particularly manna gum, swamp gum and grey gum, in sets of three or four parallel grooves from two sharp front claws. Look for these on the trunk between one and three metres above the ground. Koala droppings are small, firm and oval, about the size of a thumbnail, and they often sit in a saucer-shaped depression at the base of a tree where the animal has been resting.

Listen as well. A male koala produces a low, grating bellow, more like a snore or a saw than a call, and it carries several hundred metres on a still evening. Bellows peak between August and February. If you hear one, stop and scan the forks of large gums rather than the canopy top; koalas usually sit in the first fork, not the crown.

Which calls and colours identify kookaburras, rosellas and black cockatoos?

Kookaburras announce themselves. The laughing kookaburra gives the familiar cackling chorus at dawn and dusk, and the sound is a rising and falling series of short notes, not a single laugh. Pairs and family groups call together, so a chorus usually means three or four birds within fifty metres. Look for a stout, pale bird with a heavy dark eye stripe, a brown back and a pale blue patch on the wing. Kookaburras perch still and low, often on fence posts and dead branches, and they drop onto prey rather than chase it.

Rosellas are the flash of colour in the same woodland. An eastern rosella has a red head and breast, white cheek patches, a yellow-green back and blue shoulders and tail. A crimson rosella is deep crimson with blue cheeks, wings and tail. Both fly in fast, undulating bursts and call with a sharp, metallic two or three note whistle that is easy to learn. Rosellas feed on the ground on seeds and in the outer canopy on fruit, so a bird moving between lawn and treetop is likely a rosella.

Black cockatoos are the loudest and the largest. The yellow-tailed black cockatoo is black with a yellow cheek patch and a yellow band in the tail, and its call is a drawn-out, wailing screech that carries far and often precedes the birds. The glossy black cockatoo of the coast is smaller, all dark with a brownish tail band in females, and its call is a soft, rolling contact note between pairs. Both fly with slow, deep wingbeats and rarely glide. Yellow-tailed black cockatoos often travel in loose flocks of ten to thirty and feed on the seeds of banksias and hakeas; glossy black cockatoos stay in twos and depend on allocasuarina cones.

Reading tracks and scats without disturbing animals

Tracks are best read on soft ground after rain. Kangaroo and wallaby hind prints show a long, narrow foot with a central toe pad and two side toes; the tail may leave a drag line between the prints. Wombat prints are broad and flat with five forward claws, and they usually follow a worn pad that runs from a burrow to a feeding area. Koala prints are rare on the ground because the animal spends most of its time in trees.

Scats tell you what an animal has been eating. Kangaroo and wallaby pellets are round to slightly oval and often deposited in loose groups on grass. Wombat cubes are unmistakable. Koala pellets are small and firm and often found under a favoured tree rather than along a track. Do not handle scats; wash your hands after any field outing and keep children from picking them up.

Safety and distance on the South Coast

Give all of these animals space. A reasonable working distance is twenty metres for kangaroos and wallabies, thirty metres for wombats near a burrow, and no approach at all for koalas, which are easily stressed. Never feed wildlife, never block a burrow entrance, and keep dogs out of national parks and reserves.

If you find an injured animal, do not attempt to handle it yourself unless you are trained. Note the location, the species if you are sure, and the nature of the injury, then call the local wildlife rescue line or a licensed carer. Driving at dawn and dusk, when kangaroos and wallabies are most active on coastal roads, is the single largest cause of injuries to these species.

Where to check your identification

Field guides and local visitor centres are useful, and ranger talks at state parks and wildlife parks are a reliable way to confirm calls and colours with someone who works with the animals daily. Take a notebook, record the time, the habitat and the behaviour, and compare your notes with a published guide before you decide on a species. Identification improves with repetition, and the South Coast offers plenty of chances to practise.

Trail identification and animal photography share the same discipline: watch first, record second, and leave the subject undisturbed. A kangaroo or wombat sighting logged on the South Coast rests on the same patience that governs photographing a horse at trot from a respectful distance. If you want to carry those habits further, the field guide at sorting and archiving a shoot covers exposure for a galloping dog, horse work at trot and canter, and a post-shoot workflow for sorting, archiving and printing. Check your settings and your distance before the next outing.