Faunal+Survey+2010


 * 2 September 2010**

We have commenced our faunal studies for this year by setting up invertebrate traps in the Eastern Paddock of the Wildlife Reserve. We have had a very wet winter and the soil profile is saturated to quite deep levels. We now have a problem with water sitting on the surface of the soil. Our traps also are pushed out of the ground each time it rains.


 * 7 September 2010**

We returned to check our invertebrate traps. In the reserve we saw lots of signs of life: Pademelon scats Bettong scats Rabbit scats (alarming) Bettong scratching - they appear to be eating the Sorrel leaves and roots and also the cape weed - very helpful Dead short finned eel - being fed on by something, possibly the Bettongs or the Masked Lapwings Black Duck on clutch of eggs Moorhens Masked Lapwings Collected samples from each of our traps - they still await complete microscopic analysis, but we saw lots of worms, slugs, snails, millipedes, spiders, slaters, dragon fly nymph. We'll look more closely at these during Thursday's class.

Lots of damage sustained to trees near the Ag/Hort compound and in the Western Paddock of the Reserve. One tree with a nesting box contained Sugar Gliders - these were successfully transferred to another tree.


 * 14 September 2010**

Last week we re-established the trapline at the front of the school (first set up in 2007). Yesterday, we removed the lids. Sadly, not much bothered to fall into our traps. We caught: Black ants Bull Ants Slug Flea like insects

We checked the contents of the milk carton traps in the Reserve, while commencing the process of replacing these with 10 litre buckets (not joined by a fence, but with house tiles on top so as to reduce risk to the Bettongs and Pademelons). Again we found a broad range of snails, slugs, millipedes, centipedes, moths and spiders in these. The Black duck's clutch of eggs has hatched, and some of the students saw the ducklings on the watercourse. We also set 4 fish traps in the watercourse in the Eastern Paddock of the Reserve.

At lunch, I sat for a while in the Western Paddock watching a pair of Black Ducks on the dam with a large group of young and a Moorhen busily tending a nest. I was delighted with the sight of a Japanese Snipe. It rose from the sedges at the edge of the dam and flew rapidly across my vista and into the Eastern paddock.

In the afternoon I was on the watercourse through the school with some of my Year 7's. We had 4 frogs calling from the frog bog: Spotted Marsh Frog, Striped Marsh Frog, the Southern Toadlet and something else I haven't heard before (I'll try and find out what it was - I think we have a Growling Grass Frog, we'll need to try and record it and or catch it for ID and release).

We'll return on Thursday to check our traps and decommission them for the holiday period. We'll return to our trapping and surveying of the school in Term 4.


 * 16 September 2010**

We checked the pitfall traps at the front of the school. These have been left open for 3 days and have caught very little. This may be because of the very cold evenings we have experience during this week. The lids were secured again for the school holidays. Hopefully, a warmer October/November will produce a catch of something interesting.

We also checked the pit fall traps set in the Eastern Paddock of the Reserve. The ones closest to the water course have been lifted out of the ground by the water logged conditions of the soil. Those on the drier slopes produced little more than a few crickets and ants.

We then checked the fish traps which had been placed along the water course. While we did not catch any fish we did catch a lot of tadpoles. The tadpoles would suggest 3 or 4 species that appear to display a degree of zonation through the water course. We'll need to identify these tadpoles and try to map their location within the reserve. The fish traps were removed and will be utilised along the lower reaches of the water course following the holidays.

There was a lot of bird activity and frog calling throughout this session.

Earlier in the day I surveyed the orchid patches at the front of the school and confirmed the presence of the Gnat Orchid (//Acianthus exsertus//), Nodding Greenhood (//Pterostylis nutans//) and Maroonhood (//P. pedunculata//). I also discovered a species that I have not yet been able to identify. It has a broad sinus with the tongue completely hidden, dark green and distinctyl white stripes on the rear of the hood with the front of the hood and sinus tipped and streaked with red/brown. It has a rosette of 5 dark green, oblong leaves with a central vein. It is of the same height as the Maroonhood - but is clearly not one. I'll try to add some photos of this to the Wiki soon. I've done a bit of work with my old Jean Galbraith Wild Flowers of South East Australia and a series of websites and I'm pretty sure that the unidentified orchid is the Large Striped Greenhood or //Pterostylis robusta//. I was out trying to find a very small orchid I had spotted on Tuesday - it may well be the Tiny Greenhood or //P. parviflora//, but I couldn't find it again this morning. I'll have to try again soon as they are all coming to end of their flowering period.

Thank you to Jemima Middleton for all her help over the past three weeks. I hope she keeps in touch with our work and gives us some feedback from home. Good luck for your future teaching career.


 * 17 September 2010**

I've spent some time this morning identifying the tadpoles in our samples from the fish traps. I'll try and organise a map to show the location of the traps later today. __Trap 1.__ Spotted Marsh Frog Growling Grass Frog Common Froglet Southern Toadlet Caddis fly Larvae Mayfly Nymph Water Boatmen Water Snails Isopods

__Trap 2.__ Souther Toadlet Beetles Water Snails Isopods Water Mite Mayfly nymph

__Trap 3__ Growling Grass Frog Mayfly Nymph Isopods Water mites Water snails

__Trap 4.__ Growling Grass Frog Pobblebonk Spotted Marsh Frog Common Froglet Nematodes Mosquito Larvae Water Boatmen Isopods Amphipods Water Mites Water Snails (absolutely teeming with life - would take a full day or more with the microscope to ID everything)


 * 21 September 2010**

I've set the fishtraps in the large dam in the Western Paddock of the Reserve today (I've set two with Vegemite as Kwai suggested and 2 with beef stock - very successful last time). It was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be as the native grasses and reeds fringing the dam and waist high. The biodiversity in flora of this paddock is very high - lots of weeds that we are going to have to deal with, but a wonderful diversity of wetland plants through the soaks - lots of water just running across the surface into the dam - and lots of vegetation growing up amongst the grasses and reeds. It is going to be a marvellous habitat and a pair of swamp wallabies would just finish it off a treat. However, we do have rabbits active in this paddock and should probably try to bait them again.

Saw the Snipe again and the ducks and moorhens. I went into the Eastern Paddock to check our traps - lots of bugs in the dry land traps (the wet ones are out of the ground, of course). I was swooped by our resident Lapwings, but also saw the Snipe in this paddock, swallows 'hawking' for insects, ducks, heron and moorhens.

I'll check the fish traps tomorrow when we come in to visit the Vet and "Probey" - hopefully, he'll be released to join his mates.


 * 22 September 2010**

Sadly, Meg - our tame Vet, has had to put "Probey" down. He had lost weight and condition and the kindest thing for him was to end his suffering. Meg's going to do a quick autopsy and let us know what she finds.

The fish traps in the deep Western Paddock dam were very interesting. I used both stock cubes and vegemite without any noticeable difference. The interesting thing was the lack of diversity. Each trap held lots of tadpoles - all Pobblebonks, except one Common Froglet, lots of water boatmen and very large water beetles. I'll try and ID the beetle and let you know what I find out. But an interesting management issue - lack of diversity of invertebrate life in the dam to support a diverse food web. I've found a good guide online from the South Australian Government [|Water Invertebrates]. It would seem our beetle is a Predacious Water Beetle.

We also listened to 3 of our local frog species calling around the dam - Common Froglet, Spotted Marsh Frog and Pobblebonks. I've mapped the approx. locations - attached.
 * 24 September 2010**
 * 24 September 2010**

A very interesting result. Callum, Alex and I set the traps in the main dam - map below - on Thursday and went back today to see what we had caught. Almost nothing! Trap 1 - Backswimmers and some other small beetles to identify Trap 2 - Backswimmers Trap 3 - completely empty - nothing at all! Trap 4 - one 1m long fat short finned eel! and nothing else

I'm wondering if the eels had emptied the traps. Maybe we need to change our practice here and set them for a shorter time span?




 * 30 September 2010**

Callum, Alex and I set the traps in the large shallow pond beside the Bush Chapel on the 29th and went back today to see what we had caught. Trap 1. Shallow, sunny south side Lots of invertebrates, Backswimmers, Mayfly nymphs and lots of tadpoles - Limnodynastes dumerli and Ranidella signifera. Trap 2. Deesper water, sunny south side The same as Trap 1, only no R. signifera and loads of L. dumerli tadpoles. Trap 3. Deep water, shaded northern side Loads of tadpoles - L. dumerli, Litoria sp. - and loads of invertebrates including Caddisfly Larvae, Stonefly nymph and two separate species of Damselfly nymphs - a great outcome as these are very sensitive bugs killed off by pollution. Also great news given the pond system was completely dry by late Summer this year. Trap 4. Shallower water, shaded northern side Lots of invertebrates and backswimmers and some small water beetles and tadpoles of the Limnodynastes dumerli, Litoria peroni and Ranidella signefera species.


 * 1 October 2010**

Well that was a strange outcome - very little in any of the traps at all! Trap 1. Top Pond outside the Eastern Paddock of the Reserve - steep sided banks not a lot of vegetation in the water or surrounding. 1 Limnodynastes tadpole - absolutely nothing else. Trap 2. Pond 3 - counting from the Top Pond - also steep sided, banks with vegetation, but little in the water 2 Litoria peroni tadpoles and 1 L. dumerli - nothing else Trap 3. Pond 4 - steep sided banks, little aquatic vegetation, banks vegetated 1. Ranidella signifera tadpole and 4 beetles - to be ID'd Trap 4. The Frog pond below the main pond - great aquatic vegetation, always noisy with frogs calling lots of egg masses in the reeds Lots of invertebrate life in the water a few Pobblebonk tadpoles and a couple of R. signifera. It was a clear reasonably cloudless night and quite cool in relation to previous nights?




 * 8 October 2010**

My sons and I set the trapline last night. With some interesting results. Despite a reasonably cool night there were many more invertebrates about. Each of the buckets has a collection of earth worms, millipedes, hunting spiders - quite distinctive species (I'll try and do an ID), centipedes and slaters. But as yet nothing larger. With the air temperature rising we might see more.

Using the Museum of Victoria website [] I've decided that the spiders were female Wolf Spiders ( //Lycosa sp//**)** although the colouration was much more like the Water Spider (just a long way from a water body to make any sense!).

I also checked the pitfall traps in the Eastern Paddock. The first one had lots of worms and crikets amongst other things and a very happy Limnodynastes tasmeniensis (Spotted Marsh Frog). Not sure he was keen on being released. The second one contained a range of crickets, slaters, ants and spiders. But the third one, an old milk container, contained three skinks and lots of food - spiders, ants, millipedes, slaters and something I haven't see before. The skinks appear to be Rawlinson's Skink (Pseudomoia rawlinsoni) - they are in the tank with our tame blue tongue. I'll release them when I've confirmed the ID.


 * 14 October 2010**

Eve, Karly and I set the fish traps at the original sites in the Eastern Paddock to check on what may have changed on Tuesday (12/10). This afternoon we went back to check them. Trap 1. A few tadpoles - Limnodynastes peroni and Ranidella signifera primarily with lots of water snails, beetles and other bugs. This pond had given us the most diversity earlier. The water level has dropped throughout the system despite the amount of water still in the soil profile. Trap 2. Even fewer tadpoles - Pseudophyrne semimamorata only with some bugs. Trap 3. Bingo - lots of tadpoles - Limnodynastes tasmeniensis, Ranidella signifera, Litoria raniformis, lots of larvae, water beetles, water snails Trap 4. Even better - hundreds of very large tadpoles - with some absolutely huge black tadpoles - Limnodynastes dumerili, and Litoria raniformis with some Ranidella signifera.

Lots of the tadpoles are now showing legs and forearm development and are not far from becoming frogs.

Checked the pitfall traps (a large diversity of invertebrates, some we haven't seen before) while we were there and released the Rawlinson's skinks.

I've taken the lids of the trapline at the front of the school as it is a very warm afternoon with a strong North wind blowing. Hopefully, we'll have some critters tomorrow morning.


 * 15 October 2010**

Huge mistake. While the night was warm, sadly a lot of rain fell. Much wetter than I had expected and the watercourse is flowing fast, with large puddles everywhere including in the sandy soil under the heath with my trapline. So the Good News! We caught a Brown Antechinus - Antechinus stuartii - but the bad news is that it drowned. We also caught 8 L. dumerili (Pobblebonks) of various sizes and from their behaviour - both sexes! Lots of large earthworms, beetles, milipedes, centipedes, slaters, spiders,ants etc in every trap.

I've removed the braken and leaf litter so that the insects could all escape the traps and plaed the lids back on as we expect a lot more rain this weekend and I don't wish to cause the death of any more animals.


 * 18 October 2010**

Karly and I set the fish traps in the Deep Dam at the end of the watercourse to see if we could catch anything. We decided to just leave them for a few hours to see if that stopped the eels from cleaning out our catch. So we set them about 9.30am and checked them again at about 12.30pm - but again no luck. A few beetles and water snails, but nothing else. So we've left the traps overnight and will check again during class tomorrow.


 * 19 October 2010**

Something is very wrong with the water in the dam. Nothing in the traps! A few snails and beetles, but nothing much. This will require further investigation. We will collect water samples. However, I did find an interesting part of a skeleton which appears like it could be the pelvis of a platypus. I'm not sure - I can't find any more bones at the site and looking at skeletons on the web it is vaguely like a platypus, but probably not cylindrical enough, vaguely like a lizard, but not square enough and maybe a duck - which would make more sense given the number of ducks that use the pond. I'll have to get Charlie Clarke to have a look at the bones and our antechinus to give his expert view. Karly then set the traps in the pond chain. We'll check these on Thursday.

21 October 2010

The traps confirmed earlier findings. The first trap in the main pond - shallow sided, lots of reeds and floating vegetation (duck weed, azolla, pond weed and algae) had the most tadpoles (Pobblebonk, Growling Grass Frog, Common Froglet, Spotted Marsh Frog) and a vast array of invertebrates (larvae and nymphs of damsel flies, stone flies, dragon flies and caddis flies, round worms, flat worms, segmented worms, beetles, backswimmers and snails). Then the diversity of tadpoles and invertebrates reduced the further up the pond chain - each of these being deeper (cooler?), steeper sided, with less floating vegetation and less fringing reeds.

I set the trapline.

22 October 2010

Lots of invertebrates in the traps - ants, earthworms, slaters, millipedes, centipedes and spiders and significantly a beautiful young Weasel Skink //Saproscincus mustelina.//


 * 29 November 2010**

Callum, Alex and I decommissioned the trapline and the pitfall traps in the Reserve today. To our great delight we found 5 skinks in the bottom pitfall trap on the trapline which contained 3 Weasel Skinks and 2 Garden Skinks. We also scared 2 pairs of nesting Snipe in the grasslands below Bettong Hill and a one metre long Red Bellied Black Snake on top of Bettong Hill. A great day!