Cuteness Overload in a Tree (COiaT)…by Brad Marks

Welcome to the New Year everyone! I am getting a late start mostly due to lack of consistent connectivity…that and the fact the birding counter reset to 0 a few days ago. If you are a birder, you know that the beginning of the year is the BEST time to bird as practically every thing you see with wings is a check! As for the connectivity, we are currently in Big Bend National Park and this place is HUGE. For a reference point, the road from one end of the park to the other is ~43 miles. The park itself is over 800,000 acres of which a large number of those produce a slashed circle on your cell phone bar. I’ll get more into this park in future posts, but right now (while I have a few bars of signal) I want to get you to something I kind of let out of the bag in our Christmas greeting. Brad and Jan had the opportunity to explore “Down Under” late last year and I wanted to start off 2026 with one of their observations.

You are in for a real treat, take it away Brad!…

Sometimes, photo assignments turn out to be vacations in disguise.  Shhh, don’t tell Intrigued HQ; Jan and I sold this trip on being a four-week long photo adventure, promising to bring back thousands of photos.  Well, we actually did bring back tens of thousands of photos.  We also had a very nice vacation along the way in a spectacular part of the world.  This trip/vacation/assignment ticked several life goal boxes: crossing the equator, crossing the International Date Line, crossing the Pacific Ocean, visiting a new continent, seeing the Indian Ocean, and seeing unique wildlife.  You get the idea.

To maximize our coverage area and create the most photo opportunities, on our first full day down under we signed up for a guided tour leaving Melbourne early in the morning.  After picking up the other tour participants, the guide and driver named Brian (at least it will be for this story), gave us an overview of the agenda for the day.  Once everyone was onboard, and he thought most of the tour group was awake (the tour started before sunrise), he asked if there were any goals we had for the trip.  Waiting a few seconds to see if anyone else suggested a goal, I blurted out mine for the day.  No one else was really awake it seemed because there we no other suggestions.  I realized later that of the nine people in the tour minibus, there were only four English speaking participants.  Brian mentioned something about my goal being very nice, but that it had a very low likelihood of being achieved for reasons listed later.

Several hours into the tour, Brian had begun to warm up to the group and suggested we might be able to meet my stated goal after all. As we approached a small bridge over a stream in the middle of nowhere, literally, he slowed dramatically.  Dozens of tourists had parked haphazardly on the road and were staring up into the trees.  Brian said that when there are a bunch of people pointing up in a tree in the middle of nowhere it’s usually a sign of something high up in the trees.  Impeccable logic.

He didn’t want to add to the dangerous parking situation so he continued driving across the small bridge to park at the first safe available place.  The road was elevated above the surrounding fields by several feet allowing the creek/river to flow under the bridge with ease.  As Brian opened the sliding door on our touring minibus, Jan hopped off first and spotted a brown lump in the tree in front of us at eye level. 

How cute is that! – Hit the jump to read more about this adorable creature.

Big tick for the “See a koala in the wild” goal checkbox.  Let loose the cameras!

It’s very rare to see a Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) in the wild.  After the devastating wildfires a few summers ago, some local koala populations were reduced by up to 90%.  Even before the fires, spotting a koala in the wild was difficult at best.

First of all, koala like to rest about 2/3 of the way up a eucalyptus tree where tender leaves are located and predators are not.  By the way, eucalyptus trees can grow to 200 feet in height, you can do the math.  Second, they look like small grey or brown lumps that don’t move very much, usually obscured by leaves.  

Third, estimates suggest there are only 350,000 to 500,000 koalas left in the wild.  Their species territory is roughly one million square kilometers hinting there may only be one koala per 1-2 square kilometers of territory on average.

Back to “our” koala!  After a minute or two of photographing from the road surface, Brian, our guide, suggested I climb down the embankment for better photos.  He didn’t have to tell me twice.  At first the other tour members seemed surprised, but within a minute or two, our entire minibus had climbed down to “koala” level. 

Jan and I (and the rest of the tour group) had nearly the perfect sighting conditions.  First, the koala was at eye level thanks to the deep embankment next to the road (not 150+ feet up in a tree).  Second, the koala was actively moving (not sleeping).  Third, the leaf cover was very thin making it much easier to spot the koala.  Brian, our guide, said he’s never been able to spot a koala quite so easily in his 15+ years of guiding tours.  Whether or not he just told us that to make us feel special we’ll never know.  But, by the way he kept smiling and staring at the koala made me think his statement was true.  I know Jan and I were smiling for the next few days.

Koalas do not have very good eyesight, but they have a great sense of smell.  Even though the photos show this one looking right at the camera, I think it was the noise of the camera shutter in nearly constant motion that grabbed its attention.  I was able to capture a few “yawn” sequences that I will try to turn into an animated GIF and add to the gallery at some point in the future.

Oh, koalas aren’t really bears.  I am not sure where the whole koala “bear” thing started.  Probably to sell more cute furry stuffed animals.  It seems the early European settlers mistook koalas for a form of bear.  Their scientific name, Phascolarctos cinereus, means “ash colored pouched bear”.   Koalas can be ash (grey) colored or a nice chocolate brown like this one was.  Aboriginals called them “koala” which means “no drink”.  Koalas get all of their hydration from the eucalyptus leaves they eat.  A koala’s closest living relative is the wombat, also very cute and soft, or so we are told.

Jan insists I include words like:  Adorable, Captivating, and Cuddle-able (is that even a word?).  I think those go without saying.  Koalas are absolutely the cutest things we have ever seen in the wild with the possible exception of baby ducks (a future story).  Go on, look them both up right now and compare . . . I’ll wait.  See?!  Don’t they inspire a well-deserved “aaaaaaaw”?

Koalas sleep most of the day.  Some think the sleep is required to digest the eucalyptus leaves.  Others think that something in the leaves makes them sleepy, sort of like a koala “high”.  We heard many different interpretations on this assignment/vacation, so I think the truth is a combination of both.  Either way, once they have finished grazing, koala wedge themselves into the crook of a tree and take a nap to digest. 

By this time, you’ve figured out koala don’t move very much, and sitting in the crook of a tree for hours on end must hurt.  Good observation.  But it doesn’t seem to hurt them.  Koalas are gifted with a very large pad of fat on their backside and lower back, with very few, if any, nerve endings.

Why don’t they fall out of the trees when they sleep?  Some do, but usually only if there’s an underlying health problem.  Once they wedge in, the fat pad acts like another hand to wrap around the surface of the branch and hangs on tightly.  Think of a rubber kitchen grip used to get a stubborn lid off a jar of pickles.  Once wedged in, koalas can’t easily slip from that position.  Koalas use their claws to hold onto a branch, with their muscles locking the joints into position.  It’s nearly impossible for them to fall out. 

Koalas are one of the most easily recognizable animals in the world with their stout body (no tail), large head, round fluffy ears and large sensitive nose.  Yes, they are as soft as they look.  Jan and I were able to touch one under careful supervision of the Koala sanctuary keepers near Karunda later in the vacation, er, assignment.  They have very soft bums.  Yes, they are really that cute up close.  It was all I could do not to snatch it from its branch and give it a hug.  All of the koalas at the sanctuary were either severely injured or abandoned as youngsters.  Tourist interactions with them are very limited.  Having become habituated to humans, they are now unable to be released back to the wild.  Others we encountered have a chance to be re-released (minimal human physical contact) and are often used to boost the population of koalas in the wild.

As mentioned before, koalas eat only eucalyptus leaves, and then only the new and tender shoots at the ends of branches.  The eucalyptus trees recover quickly, putting on new shoots in a matter of days.  We were told by the koala staff at Taronga Zoo in Sydney that koalas are, hands down, the single most expensive animal in the zoo.  Period.  Full stop.  Each animal needs a population of roughly 1,000 eucalyptus trees to provide enough new leaves for them to eat over the course of a year.  At the time of our visit, Taronga Zoo had 14 koalas in their care.  Meaning, they needed to have a grove of, or have access to, approximately 14,000 eucalyptus trees. (14 koala times 1,000 trees each)

There are over 600 kinds of eucalyptus trees on earth.  Koalas only eat leaves from only a very small percentage of these, and even then, not the same type of eucalyptus all the time.  Usually, an individual koala will prefer leaves from 3-4 types of eucalyptus trees.  Keepers have to make educated guesses on which leaves from a koala’s preferred trees they will eat on a particular day.  Sounds a little like a two-year old, doesn’t it?  Leftover branches are provided to other animals in the zoo as enrichment activities.  Eucalyptus leaves contain many toxic compounds similar to cyanide.  Only two other animals on earth can safely digest eucalyptus leaves:  the Greater Glider and the Ringtail Possum, both very cute animals in their own right.  Australian (or New Zealand for that matter) possums aren’t the giant rat-like O’possum we have in North America.  The Australian version seems to be a cross between a lemur (dexterity), a housecat (size), and a mink (softness).

Koalas are solitary animals, except during the breeding season.  Each animal maintains a territory of its own.  Baby koalas are called joeys and stay with their mom for the first year, then they leave to find their own territories.

Are Koala dangerous to humans?  Only if they feel threatened and are unable to escape.  Keep in mind, they are very strong with very sharp claws.  If provoked, a koala can bite down with about 975 PSI of force.  While not as strong as a Great White Shark (4,000 PSI) or a Saltie, saltwater crocodile (3,700 PSI), they can certainly leave a mark that won’t clear up for quite some time.

Koalas come to the ground only to change trees.  They are rather slow and awkward under the best circumstances.  Walking on the ground is when most koala deaths occur, mainly from dogs and cars. 

At this point, more and more people are stopping to see “our” koala in the tree.  The parking situation on the road and the shoulder is beginning to become unsafe.  Several people have left their cars directly on the road surface.  One group drove off the road, kudos to them, but drove axle-deep into the marsh area, bad for them. 

Jan and I have been greatly enjoying seeing this particular koala for about 15 minutes, and have taken nearly a thousand photos between our two cameras and smartphones.  I found out it’s difficult to use the viewfinder on my camera when I’m smiling constantly.  How often does one get to see a koala in the wild?  Not very often is the unfortunate answer.  We did realize later that we may have seen other koala “lumps” high up in the trees which I mistook for squirrel nests.

Thank you for reading.  If you want to see more Koala photos, and I certainly don’t blame you if you do, please visit here. 

Credits

Thanks again to Jan for proofreading and editing.  Thanks to Jan for some of the photos in this article.