|
Dispatches from the Field:
Meeting Penguins and Kangaroos
By Michelle Di Fiore
Aug. 6, 2007
 |
| Di Fiore feeds a Red Kangaroo at the Maru Fauna Park. |
|
Cars racing on the left side of the road are no longer a shock but just the norm. I no longer think in Pacific Standard Time except when I make calls home, where everyone laughs when they think that my day is ending while theirs is about to begin. After a month of coping with 12-degree weather, riding around Melbourne in trains and eating meat pies for dinner, I can finally say that I am adjusted to life here in Australia.
I even finally had a close encounter with this country's best-known native animal, the kangaroo. It happened at a wild animal park on the way to Phillip Island, south of Melbourne, where I went on a tour with several other students. Maru Fauna Park had all the Australian animals you could think of. We saw sleepy koala bears, wild Tasmanian Devils, gentle wallabies, huge emus and even got to pet a young wombat. These animals were all interesting, but my favorite moment was when we got to feed kangaroos.
 |
| A sign welcomes visitors to the Penguin Parade on Summerland Beach on Phillip Island, south of Melbourne. |
|
The park was filled with kangaroos ranging from tall dark-brown males to cream-colored females carrying a Joey in their pouch. Kangaroos were everywhere and came up to you for only one reason - food. I could not believe how much those critters ate! Once you showed them your palm full of food, they would use their tail to slowly prop themselves up and start to nibble. Then, they used both of their hands and grasped your palm in a death grip so you could not go anywhere until they were done. Each kangaroo didn't budge one step while tourists constantly provided them with first-class feeding service. As I joined in and fed these unique animals I couldn't help but think how exciting it was to interact with the animal for which Australia is so famous.
 |
| Di Fiore, left, and fellow PRIME student Heather Griffith show off their penguin souvenirs. |
|
A little later, we got to experience another one of Phillip Island's attractions. The island is famous for a colony of the smallest species of penguins, called Little Penguins. Every night, they waddle up the shore to get to their burrows not too far away on the sand dunes. And each time, big sea gulls bully them and try to scare them away by dive-bombing them, causing them to dive back into the water for safety. However, the Little Penguins eventually gain enough courage to make it home. This march home to safety is called the penguin parade.
Meanwhile, back in Melbourne, the other PRIME students and I have made progress in our research. Working with a program called the Adaptive Poisson-Boltzmann Solver and running different scripts has helped improve my computer science skills - something that I sorely lacked before I arrived in Australia. Each day raises new questions and new obstacles to overcome; I just hope that I can find the all the answers!
|
Di Fiore studies at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. |
|
|
