Eastern Grey Kangaroo, Adult Female Portrait, Victoria, Australia

(Click image to enlarge)

The illumination for this photograph was supplied by the moon and the glow on the horizon where the sun would rise around 15 minutes later. It took several attempts to get a critically sharp photo due to the kangaroo moving slightly during the long exposure, which was 1/20 second at f/6.3 and ISO 3200 using a focal length of 600mm. Check the larger image for sharpness.

The entire time I was taking photographs of this mother, her joey was eating the greener grass near my feet. Neither of them cared about me, but there was another kangaroo in the mob that the mom would occasionally stop grazing to look at. That's what she is doing in this photo.

Eastern grey kangaroos are among the most gentle, benign, and placid wild animals I have encountered. They have wide and almost continuous distribution between Australia's inland plains and the coast where the annual rainfall is more than 250mm (9.9 inches). They are found over most of Australia's eastern states including Tasmania at all altitudes from woodlands to subalpine areas. Eastern Grey Kangaroos live in groups, called mobs, that range in size from around ten to more than 100 animals.

Adult females are smaller and less muscular than the males, but they are still very fast and strong. They weigh 17 to 40 kg (37 to 88 pounds) and rarely stand more than 1.8 meters (5 feet 11 inches) high. Females can support three joeys of different ages at the same time, with one outside her pouch and another in the pouch, while pregnant with a third.