It's been years since I have seen the once familiar shape of a koala in our back yard.
We live on a few acres and I still remember the joy of seeing our little Australian friends on a daily basis. I remember hearing for the first time their characteristic grunts. The sounds combined with the plaintiff call of the curlew and the clatter of a possum's feet as it ran along the veranda.
Noisy it may have been, but ours was a piece of Australian paradise.
I have seen grater gliders, echidnas, many families of ducks, pale headed rosellas, hawks, possums, snakes, guinea fowl, wallabies and even peacocks in our back yard. But for the past few years, it has been a place of solitude. Even the ducks have gone and our gum trees sway and lean alone. The noisy miners have no one left to harrass.
We have joined a rather wonderful program of bush rehabilitation with the Redland City Council and together with our neighbours, have planted significantly in recent years. The trees are almost big enough now to remove their green enclosures.
But it is not one of these juicy new saplings that have enticed this lone koala back. It is one of the favourite trees, the bark still checked with scratches from former habitation.
I was hanging the washing at the time of the siting and called my husband outside. He came slowly at first, possibly believing I may have needed him to hang out his socks, but when I pointed upwards and he saw our new favourite inhabitant in the fork of the tree, he went inside grab his camera.
We walked the property then, chancing upon two of our neighbours. And there they were, phones in hand, pointing up, hands shading their eyes, mouths smiling.
The little fellow had united a neighbourhood.
The next morning, a cackle of kookaburras woke me. My daughter was visiting from Germany so it was a happy sound for a returned Australian. I tried to locate the birds only to spot a wallaby with a joey in its pouch. The koala, it seems had not only united our little community, but he had brought some other species out to play.
Now I just want him to bring some friends who can enjoy the succulence of a new gum leaf and make our happy neighbourhood their new home.