Yesterday an echidna came for a visit and has decided to hang out in our garden, we are delighted. This very shy native marsupial of Australia must be having a mad moment for we have 6 children, 1 cat,  and 2 dogs but we are managing to give him a peaceful stay. I say him but we are really hoping it's a pregnant female, who wants to lay her egg here. She claws the soft egg into her pouch, ten days later the egg hatches and it stays there feeding off her until the spines start growing and the mother claws it out, where it stays in a burrow for 6 months, it leaves it's mother after 4 weeks out of the burrow. BREAKING NEWS As I am typing this the children checked on our little visitor and it's DIED!!! Oh, no one minute I'm thinking of a new family for us, the next a burial. Should I feel honored that it chose our yard to die in.