
This is the heart-wrenching moment a grieving male kangaroo cradles the head of his lifeless female companion as she reaches for her joey one last time underneath the shade of a mango tree.

Evan Switzer noticed the touching marsupial interaction while going for a walk on bushland property in River Heads, a coastal town close to Fraser Island in Queensland, on Monday morning.

'I saw the male pick up the female, he looked like he was just trying to get her up and see what was wrong with her,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'He would lift her up and she wouldn't stand she'd just fall to the ground, he'd nudge her, stand besides her ... it was a pretty special thing, he was just mourning the loss of his mate.'

Heartbreaking: A male kangaroo cradles the head of a lifeless mother as she reaches out for her joey on a property in River Heads, a coastal town in Queensland

'He would lift her up and she wouldn't stand she'd just fall to the ground': Evan Switzer captured the heartbreaking moment while going for his regular morning walk

The mother's lifeless body is propped up at the neck by the male - who appears to look solemnly ahead, overcome with sadness.

The baby kangaroo can do little but hold out its claws and touch its mother softly, before standing upright to her side in a protective stance.

Mr Switzer - a keen photographer who has been walking in the area with his dog twice a day for close to ten years - first noticed the kangaroos after hearing an unusual 'thumping sound.'

He raced back home to grab his camera and returned to find the protective male in the same position.

The male kangaroo appeared very protective, chasing off any other kangaroos that came close to the limp body of the female

EASTERN GREY KANGAROO FAMILY LIFE Eastern Grey Kangaroos are an iconic marsupial mammal that belongs to a small group called macropods They live in mobs of 10 or more in a home range of up to five kilometres in eastern Australia

Males can grow up to 1.3 metres tall while females grow up to one metres tall

The tendons in the legs of kangaroos act like sprung ropes and help propel the animal at fast speed with minimum effort. The highest recorded speed was set by a female Eastern Grey Kangaroo at 64km/hr

Being nocturnal, large ‘mobs’ will gather at dusk to feed where food is most abundant

They are herbivorous, favouring grasses but will eat a range of plants, including in some cases, fungi

Breeding is continuous throughout the year and reaches a peak in summer

The newborn ‘joey’ which weighs less than one gram is born thirty six days after mating. It climbs unaided into the pouch and shortly afterwards attaches to one of the four teats

The young kangaroo is raised in the pouch until it can survive outside. At about nine months the joey will begin to leave the pouch but continues to suckle from time to time Source: Australian Museum Advertisement

'I’ve travelled around a bit and you see a lot of dead roos on the side of the road – but I've never seen anything like that before,' he said.

'The male would chase the other kangaroos that came around away – he was sort of protective over the female.'

'The young one looked kind of confused, it would stand by the mother and then hop off and chew some grass, and then come right back again.'

Mr Switzer was unsure how the female - who had no visible wounds - ended up limp on the grass.