Nature Watch News from Donna Brennan Wildlife Volunteers, WILVOS, 5441 6200 www.wilvos.org.au

It’s been a very hectic week in the egg incubator. WILVOs have had a number of calls about nests that have been abandoned for some reason, in one case with a dead parent found nearby.

WILVOS are the only wildlife organization on the Sunshine Coast to have offered a 24 hour Hotline for so many years. Others try, but it is not easy maintaining a roster and all the work that goes with it. But we have wonderful, willing volunteers who want to have training in Hotline duty, transport or learning how to care for our native animals.

Back to the incubator. There was an odd noise coming from somewhere when I was getting food ready for the little orphaned wallaby, possum and feathertail glider. I looked in the egg incubator and there was the little lone lorikeet egg, all hatched.

I was glad that it had hatched first as the other occupants were all much larger and could have trampled the little egg. A week later this little one is tiny but thriving.

Six days later it sounded like there was an elephant in the egg incubator. This time one of the four plovers had hatched. More plovers! This was closely followed by his sibling and within 24 hours, all four eggs had hatched. I am just thankful they learn to self feed very quickly, as they do with their parents.

Now there are just 11 wood duck eggs. They will be a handful if all hatch.

Thank you as always to people who are so observant of wildlife in their backyard.