The escaped Aussie animal that’s taken over a British isle

It’s late on a summer’s evening and I’m on an unusual safari. Our small group has gathered in a particularly pretty glen beneath heather-clad moors in the northern reaches of the Isle of Man, the Irish Sea island between England and Northern Ireland. As we set off and ascend a steep trail through towering pine and beech trees, our guide, Andy, points out various wild plants – bramble, blaeberry, wood sorrel – and tells us about their medicinal properties. It’s a gentle prelude to encountering the mammals that we’ve come here to see.

“There’s one,” says Andy suddenly, pointing up to where the path levels onto a plateau. The creature looking back at us is alert and upright, ears pricked. Its face is framed by a strip of white fur and its front paws are darker than the rest of its body, making it look almost like it’s wearing gloves. It looks around before bounding away on its hind legs, tail held high, leaving us enthralled – if not slightly bemused – for having bumped into a wild wallaby.

I’ve seen some amazing wildlife in or near the British Isles over the years – from whales in Scotland to great bustards in Wiltshire and basking sharks here in the Isle of Man – but wallabies, being from the other side of the world, are perhaps the most extraordinary. This particular species, the red-necked wallaby, hails from Tasmania, where the cooler, wetter, temperate climate is not so dissimilar to ours here in Britain.

Throughout the 20th century, escaped individuals formed naturalised populations across the UK, from Loch Lomond to the Chilterns and down into Surrey and Sussex. I remember my amazement at seeing them in a book on British wildlife when I was a child. Some populations (notably the Peak District’s) seem to have since died out, but over on the Isle of Man they’re positively thriving.

“There’s something like 1200 of them, mostly here in the north of the island,” says Andy, as we continue on the trail in the fading light. “But they’re generally nocturnal, which makes them easy to miss if you don’t know where to look.”

Seeing these Manx macropods is not the only highlight of Andy’s Wild Wallaby Wander. As dusk sets in, he leads us to a ruined farmstead where we take a break beside its tumbledown stone walls. He produces a flask and pours us each a cup of herbal tea made with hawthorn flowers and other foraged botanicals.

As we sip, our attention is drawn to a thrush’s song and the hoot of a short-eared owl. The light fades around us. It’s a wonderfully mindful-in-nature moment that Andy makes all the more special by pulling out a flute and playing Ma