Faunal+Survey+2008


 * Tuesday 28 October 2008**

Once again the Year 11 Biology classes, as part of their investigation of ecosystems, are completing a management plan for the natural environment of the Senior Campus. This requires considerable fieldwork by day (so you may see them standing around in groups staring at plants, muttering and gesticulating a lot during the day) and night – most of our local fauna being nocturnal. So in the past week we have re-established our original trapline between H/S’s 1 – 3 and Golf Links Road and established a new one below the paperbark parallel with the Wildlife Reserve fence. Last night Jenny, I and 8 brave students spent two hours listening to frogs, pointing at birds, assessing the trees for hollows (stags to be watched) and spotlighting sugar gliders and ring tailed possums. We saw 3 x Sugar Gliders – // Petaurus breviceps // 3 families of Ring tailed Possum (about 12 individuals) – // Pseudocheirus peregrinus // A number of Free tailed bats – most likely the White-striped // Tadaria australis // Masked Lapwings Banded Dotterel Sulphur  Crested Cockatoo Crested Pigeon Galah Rainbow Lorikeet Eastern Rosella Magpie Wood Ducks – surprise surprise! (actually, my son Alex (a veteran of the trapline) thought they must be called Woodleigh Ducks) We heard lots of   Pobblebonk or Eastern Banjo Frog - // Limnodynastes dumerili // Spotted Marsh Frog - // L. tasmeniensis // Southern Brown Tree Frog – // Litoria ewingi // Southern Toadlet  – // Psuedophyrne bibroni // Overnight one Southern Brown Tree Frog (new trapline) and one Spotted Marsh Frog (old trapline) made the mistake of falling in one of our buckets. The ground is bone dry and not conducive to animals moving about much. We may have more luck on Thursday night or next week after a damp weekend.


 * Wednesday 29 October 2008**

Last night we caught Bull ants, Jumping Jacks, Centipedes, Black Beetles and one Eastern Banjo Frog (Pobblebonk).


 * Thursday 30 October 2008**

We will conduct another stag watch and frog survey this evening.

**Monday 10 November** We had around 15mm of rain through Friday into Friday evening. I had hoped this would have got some animals on the move and so I set the traps for Sunday night, checking them this morning. The results were again very poor. One very large - almost 5cm - centipede and one very fat Eastern Banjo Frog in the original trapline. Nothing in the new trapline. The soil remains very dry and there was little evidence of the heavy rain from 2 days earlier. The creek bed was damp, but there were no standing puddles and the ponds did not appear any more full. It would appear that the soil was so dry from 10 weeks with little rainfall that it has soaked up most of what fell. There is more rain forecast for Thursday - so I might try one more nights trapping after that event.


 * Friday 14 November**

Last night with the barometer falling, a chance of light rain and the frogs already calling at 4.00pm I took a chance and set the traps (a chance, because if it rained too much, I’d drown anything I caught). Fortunately, luck was with us. There was enough rain to get frogs on the move, but not enough to drown them. We caught lots of frogs – Big Fat heavily pregnant female Pobblebonks, Striped Marsh Frogs and Spotted Marsh Frogs, a couple of smaller male Pobblebonks and Spotted Marsh Frogs and a southern Brown Toadlet in both traplines. All safely returned to the wild; apart from a female Pobblebonk which appears to have been attacked by another animal (gash on it’s under surface) which we have pickled for future reference. I might try one more night this Sunday and then decommission the traplines for another year.