Karen and Adam are the owners of Fruity7 Farm, a property situated in Leycester, approximately 10km northwest of Lismore, New South Wales. The property is a residence and wildlife sanctuary also used for homesteading, and the owners intend to maintain it for these purposes. Karen and Adam are designing a permaculture plan for the property to ensure that biodiversity is maintained, and they hope to see koalas return to the property one day.
The property covers nine hectares across a mostly forested hillside, featuring a small section of permanent creek and a cleared paddock on the flatter ground. Vegetation is characterized by subtropical rainforest.
Wildlife is abundant and features swamp (Wallabia bicolor) and red-necked (Macropus rufogriseus) wallabies, long-nosed bandicoots (Perameles nasuta), short-beaked echidnas (Tachyglossus aculeatus), carpet pythons (Morelia spilota), bandy bandy snakes (Vermicella annulata), green tree snakes (Dendrelaphis punctulata) and night tiger snakes (Boiga irregularis), as well as a wide range of native insects and arachnids.
The riparian zone is home to freshwater turtles, yabbies, eels, and native fish, along with an array of frogs including green tree (Litoria caerulea) and northern banjo (Limnodynastes terraereginae) frogs.
Birdlife includes glossy black cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus lathami), pheasant coucals (Centropus phasianinus), spangled drongos (Dicrurus bracteatus), golden whistlers (Pachycephala pectoralis), azure kingfishers (Alcedo azurea), laughing kookaburras (Dacelo novaeguineae), rainbow bee-eaters (Merops ornatus), galahs (Eolophus roseicapilla), rainbow (Trichoglossus moluccanus) and scaly-breasted (Trichoglossus chlorolepidotus) lorikeets, king parrots (Alisterus scapularis), several species of hawk and many more.
A catalogue of native species on the sanctuary can be found here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?user_id=fruity7farm
