Pebbles the platypus lives in Ten Mile Creek in rural south-east Queensland near the NSW border. Every month she writes about her life in her burrow, her creek and how she copes with the changing seasons and conditions.

October

One month after meeting the new male platypus by the waterfall and the result was just what I'd hoped. I laid two white eggs in my burrow, each one about the size and shape of a small Cool mint! I lay my eggs out of the same hole in my rear end that I poo and wee out of. It's a very simple system and my cousin the echidna does the same. (But I hear that other animals have much more complicated personal plumbing - I wonder how they cope?)

Looking after the eggs isn't hard in my neat burrow. The warm, wet leaves in the nesting chamber make the air humid so the eggs don't dry out. I incubated the eggs in my fur by curling round them with my tail laid underneath to keep the eggs and me warm.

One morning just a week after I'd laid my eggs, the parchment double shell on both eggs broke open and my babies crawled straight out and started to suck milk from my milk patch.

Baby platypuses don't really look like the adults. My little girl and little boy don't have any fur and no bill to speak of. They look as if they are made of jelly. But they will grow up very quickly.

I haven't really seen the boy platypus since the lovely day at the waterfall. Males of my species don't get mixed up with family life. But that's the way we like it.

What happened in November in the adventures of Pebbles the Platypus...

Want to read the rest of the diary so far?

For more information on WPSQ's activities, contact the office by email or call + 61 7 3221 0194.