On a happier note . . .

Sugar Glider, Western Lake Macquarie, 28th March 2018 

One of the great things about working in the environmental field is the opportunity to see wildlife that the vast majority of local residents will never see.  I've been helping out a good friend with a fauna survey over the last three months, and it never ceases to amaze me what species are living in my own back yard.

Working with endangered frogs I learned very quickly that MANY species are far more common than originally thought, it just people are not in the field in the correct weather pattern, because it's not very pleasant.  For example, the winter breeding frogs had relatively little known about them until recently because humans would rather be tucked up in bed or in front of a fire in the middle of winter when temperatures are at their lowest and it's pouring rain, muddy, wet and very slippery.  

There was a species of locally very common frog formally named for the first time recently.  What is not revealed in the literature was that I found the very first specimens because I was in the field at the right time back in the early 1990's.  I have the precise locality data and dates for them in my log books.  I spent hours and hours and hours in the field, spent thousands of dollars, drove my car hundreds and hundreds of kilometres and was lucky enough to find them, and show them to the person they would eventually be named after.  At the time, he thought they were simply a strange colour variation, not a completely new species to science.         

On Wednesday night, we found this Sugar glider photographed above, with my mobile phone in an urban area.  Last night we found a Yellow bellied glider in a very similar area, close to my home.  We've seen Ring-tailed possums, Brush-tailed possums, owls, fruit bats, bush rats, dear little antechinuses and bandicoots in remnant vegetation patches all over the Lake Macquarie area.  It truly is all about spending time in your local patch of bush.     

         

Lace monitor DOR

Lace monitor dead-on-road 16th March 2018 

I encountered the pathetic sight of one of the largest Lace monitors I have ever seen, dead-on-the-road on the way home from work last week.  This thing was huge, a solid 5 feet long, and thick.  It would have weighed around 10 kilos of pure, savage muscle.  I know because I dragged it's body off the road, so scavengers wouldn't be killed by traffic.  The surrounding environment was mature Eucalypt woodland, and there were raptors and Australian ravens in the area.  I believe there would probably be quolls in the area from past experience in nearby forests.

I wonder if this animal was following the scent trail of a nearby female, as on Monday I saw a much smaller Lace monitor dead in almost the same spot.