Sun Valley resident Jenny McLeod had a pleasant surprise on Tuesday night after spotting her first echidna in the area.
“I've been driving past the echidna sign for the last two years at the bottom of Sun Valley Road thinking it was fake advertising, and this evening I finally spotted one,” she reported on social media.
The post has been very popular on the Blue Mountains Community Social Group Facebook page with about 275 likes by this morning.
Jane Dough said: “Great. It's breeding time so they are on the move”.
Other residents reported they have seen echidnas up and down the Mountains.
Michael Connolly said: “Awesome, I've seen one down at Glenbrook near Jelly Bean Pool” with Kay Lene reporting seeing “one out at Singles Ridge Road at Winmalee”.
Christopher Webber added he had “seen one cross the highway at Wentworth Falls, and go into Blue Mountains Grammar”.
Another resident Ginett Mills said she had “seen one down there [in Sun Valley] a few years ago. They're so cute. My partner knows how to hold them so I was able to see one up close pretty recently, posting a picture of one up close.
A former Sun Valley resident Karen Levy said echidnas were “an everyday visitor … out the end bit of ridgeway”.
With another, Letitia Kemister, adding “I used to live in Sun Valley from 1972 on, there were heaps then... on the left hand side of the road underneath the nursery there used to be a nest in the ferns there”.