The Return of the Wombat

Readers may recall that I photographed a Wombat in my front yard ten days ago.

Well, a few nights ago, while I was composing another Blog post, I heard a terrible rasping noise coming from under my house.

Having worked on the construction of my own house, I knew straight away that the noise could only be coming from something rubbing against the high-tensile metal rods which are known as "Tie Downs". They hold the house on the brick piers which in turn are sunk down to bedrock underneath my house. These rods are threaded, and the bolts which hold the house down (in high winds) are tensioned up to a point where they "ring" if you hit them with a spanner. This is the way that the engineers test the tightness of the bolts.

Having installed and tensioned these bolts myself, I know the sound they can make.

Well, the lower sections of these "Tie Downs" are curved up, like "fish-hooks" and obviously some large nocturnal animal was using this as a scratching post.

Who could it be? (as if you don't know already).

Here it was, outside the house by this stage,
calmly chewing on some nice, fresh and moist grass.
(It had been raining that night).
Click to enlarge the image, to see the grass in its mouth.

The Wombat stood still for a few moments, then moved off slowly, facing away from me. I walked over to see if I could get beside it, when suddenly it objected to my "interest" and grunted, and crashed off through the dense shrubbery in my garden. I have no idea how much damage it caused in terms of broken plants. "Spilled milk", I am afraid.