"It was about 9.30 or 10 on a dark, late November night; Molly Laird was driving her pink Mini home along country lanes to her Warwickshire cottage. Suddenly, the headlights' beam picked up an animal sitting in the road. I thought it was a deer at first, Molly tells me. But when it moved, its tail wasn't right, and it was hopping."
"Becky has spent time in Australia and recognises a native of those parts when she sees one; she knew the creature on her daughter's phone video was no deer. Also with us is Darren Parkin from nearby Stratford-upon-Avon. Adventurer, outdoors instructor, bushcraft enthusiast and tracker, Parkin has been interested in the UK's wallaby population for years. When you've been everywhere and done everything in the outdoors in the UK, if there's something slightly different, that doesn't fit that normality, it becomes fascinating, he says."
On a late November night, 19-year-old Molly Laird spotted and filmed an animal on country lanes near Oxhill, Warwickshire, initially mistaking it for a deer before noting its unusual tail and hopping. The video was posted online and identified by viewers as a red-necked wallaby. Molly's mother, Becky, recognised the animal from time spent in Australia and confirmed it was not a deer. Darren Parkin, an adventurer, outdoors instructor and tracker from Stratford-upon-Avon, has a longstanding interest in the UK's wallaby population and has followed tracks and investigated recent local sightings, sometimes spending nights in the field to trace them.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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