About twelve hours after I posted the photos of our kangaroo mob, lamenting that they had not visited for days, they all showed up.  This included the mature female with the older joey.  For some reason they showed up at noon – almost on the dot.  As a habit, the kangaroos are gone before 9am and don’t return until after 5pm, so it was highly unusual to see the whole mob looking so relaxed for the entire afternoon.

For five hours I watched for signs that the joeys might come out of the pouch.  I saw tantalizing glimpses of ears, tails, feet – even an entire hind leg, but no joey.  Then, just on dusk, my patience was rewarded.  One of the joeys emerged from the pouch right in front of the study window.

These photos tell the story more powerfully than any words I can use, so open the photo gallery and scroll through to the end. The first seven photos are the tantalizing moments leading up to the joey’s antics, and the next seven photos are of the joey.  Annotations below the photos fill in some extra detail.  I took some video footage as well, but I need to reformat and edit this before posting it on the blog.

Once again, if you receive this post via email, come to the blog and view the photos in full screen mode for the best experience.

In all of the time they have been coming here, I have never known any of them to lay down within sight of the house. As a bonus, the sleeping position of the joey is amazing – look for the ear and the elbow or knee.

When she adjusted position, the joey stuck out an entire hind leg.

Even when she stood up, the hind led was still protruding from the pouch.

Meanwhile, the other joey preferred to air its tail.

The black areas you can see at the opening of the pouch are heels.

As you can see, the female kangaroos have quite a bundle to carry around with them.

The cats seemed to be just as fascinated with the kangaroos as I was. They sat and watched them for hours.

Joey emerged from the pouch hind feet first. Sounds awkward, but makes sense, I suppose. I could tell something was happening because the pouch was jiggling up and down when the female was still. Once out, the joey regularly stuck its head back inside the pouch.

I’m got the impression that the joey felt comfort in putting its head back inside the pouch. It would do so after exploring something new, holding onto the mother kangaroo with its front paws.

Finally we can see its face!

I love this photo. The joey leans back and scratches in the same way an adult kangaroo does it.

.. if I can just reach that bit…

One of the other kangaroos moved and the joey was very keen to see where it was going. In this photo the opening of the pouch is very visible.

For some reason, the joey was fascinated with its mother’s ears. Using its front paws, the joey would fluff and ruffle and shadow box the ears. I have video footage of this, which I will try to post in the next day or so.