Romantic Wombats

April marked the start of the Waring Wombat Season on the Kulin nation calendar. As the weather cools, waring (wombats) emerge from their burrows to bask in the sunshine.

Right on cue, on the morning of April 3rd, when checking the camera traps set for fox monitoring below B track, two very large healthy wombats were encountered. They were moving fast, one following closely behind the other, tracing circles and figure eights between the trees. Healthy wombats usually take off the minute a human comes close, but these two were so engrossed in each other that they ignored or didn’t notice the humans.

A look at the camera traps revealed they’d been playing follow-the-leader for days. Later it became clear what was going on...a quick google indicates it’s extremely rare to witness wombats mating, so much so that a similar video captured a few years ago resulted in this National Geographic article.

Interestingly, the DEECA wombat fact sheet states that wombats will breed throughout the year if food is abundant. Clearly the recent rain has been adequate to provide these two with some romantic dinners.