At first glance Steven Ellis thought the small creature in the distance was a deer, but he soon realised he was witnessing something far more unusual.

Ellis was near the village of Ilketshall St Andrew in Suffolk when he took out his camera and took a photograph of the animal, which turned out to be a wallaby.

“We’ve got quite a few deer around, so I thought I must be mistaken,” he said. “But then I thought it was a kangaroo. I don’t think they’re far off. I stood there thinking: ‘Who do I ring to tell them?’ But I thought no one was going to believe me.”

Wallabies are native to Australia but small wild populations descended from escapers do exist in the UK and sightings have become more common, especially in the Isle of Man.

Ellis’s encounter on Tuesday was not to be the last. Suffolk police received a call of another sighting the next day about seven miles away. The animal hopped from the road into a field just outside the village of Wissett.

A spokesperson for Suffolk police said that despite the brief flurry of attention no further sightings had been confirmed, and no individual or organisation had come forward to claim ownership of the animal.

Police are asking the public to report any sightings directly to them.

Occasional escapes from private collections have been documented in recent years. Wallabies are generally considered not dangerous to humans, but they can be unpredictable and should be treated with caution.

Those hand-reared or accustomed to human presence can be gentle, but others can be easily startled, especially if they feel threatened.