Rain in Brisbane for three weeks straight had been driving me slowly round the twist. Cold mornings, creeping gloom (and mould), and wet dog walks were eventually overcome by the crippling anxiety associated with Barkley’s ear being torn asunder by his big brother. It wasn’t healing and the poor little blighter went in to surgery as I was in the air to Mt Isa for work. Needless to say, the first couple of days of the trip weren’t very fun as I was fretting big time. A huge thanks to Jess, her parents and my Mum and Dad who all stepped up to look after the little bloke whilst I was away looking for rares. As I write this the conehead is snoring next to me and his ear is healing well, so all’s well that ends well… I’m just short about $600 from the vets and 6 years of my life.
Thanks to the vagaries of the global financial system, a putative project in the vicinity of Clonkers had been greenlighted and so required some further assessment in terms of rares. A crack team of witches (and yours truly) were assembled to search high and low. I was part of the fauna team – the target list had me foaming at the mouth prior to departure. It’s always exciting to go to new places for surveys and even better when the area isn’t well covered; I always feel like there’s MEGAs lurking in the landscape. After the drive from Isa (crippling) and checking in we headed up the road to Chinaman Ck Dam. The last time I was here Phillip had pulled a three meter long Water Python out of the shallows. I had a poke around the lake on sunset, rumbling a few Paperbark Flycatchers in the Melaleucas by the water and then getting my compatriots a lifer in the form of some distant Purple-necked Rock Wallabies basking in the last light of day. I also had some excellent sanitation views of Cloncurry Ringnecks – my lifers had been seen in a blur from the car back on my last trip up here so it was good to bathe in their photons again. We then headed back to camp to enjoy a surprisingly good dinner and celebrate the fall of the evil Liberal empire 🙂
On site the next morning I was pleased to find LEOPARD CTENOTUS within the first hour or so of the sun being up. The big bruiser was hiding under a clump of Spinifex pungens but I managed one decent shot. Budgies, Cockatiel and Spinifex Pigeon were very abundant and in fact the whole site looked fantastic – recent rains had really plumped the place up. I was frothing about the spotlighting and the next night I was rewarded with another lifer – a diminutive Stripe-faced Dunnart peering at me from the blacksoil cracks. Due to the remote chance of Julia Creek Dunnart occurring on site we really wanted to catch some of the little beasts but it was not to be. We did find out, however, that the Stripe-faced Dunnarts would come out of the cracks when provided with some fresh grasshoppers or spiders! Sandra and I spent a lovely 15 minutes with one on the second night and I ended up hand-feeding xir a spider. Crazy stuff.
On our last night of spotlighting we headed somewhere new, tramping up the scree slope to the base of ‘the cliff’ – a giant strike ridge looming over the landscape. At sunset we positioned ourselves beneath a likely cleft and waited to see if anyone was home. Nobody emerged, but as the last light left the sky I plugged in the EchoMeter and we were instantly agog at the amount of bat activity around us. We sat up near the caves and listened to the little blips of sound coming from the device as bats zipped past. I’ve still got to key out the calls but amongst several others I’m sure we had Common Freetail Bat (which I later found at a roost), which were flying relatively slowly and hunting in pairs. A tiny moth-like critter flitted around and amongst the shrubs and didn’t show up on the device at all, so I’m pretty sure that it was Dusky Leaf-nosed Bat – I had a similar experience with one in the NT a few years back. The rest of the night was pretty quiet apart from a bunch of Geckoes, but sitting up on the cliff and watching the sunset and then the bats was absolutely amazing. I feel pretty privileged to have this gig!
We had a bit of time to kill the next morning due to the fatigue policy requiring a minimum of ten hours between shifts. There was a site on eBird about 25 mins away where Kalkadoon Grasswren had been seen a few years ago, so I thought we should check it out. Heading into the valley I was dismayed to find it choked with Buffel Grass, so we headed up a little gulch and poked our heads out onto a beautiful Spinifex-covered slope. Within about 3 minutes I heard some soft twittering and song and we stalked closer, eventually getting unreal views of a male Kalkadoon foraging in a dry creekbed. I got some fantastic recordings of the song but didn’t try for any photos. I was happy watching him do his thing and go about undisturbed. I had gotten a vicarious lifer (via Sandy) and I was stoked! He was only the third Kalkadoon I had ever seen. We headed back to the accom and then rolled out to do some bird surveys on site, setting the Elliott’s before coming home. The trapping was largely a bust, but we did manage to catch a couple of Common Rock Rats up on one of the strike ridges over the next couple of days. A handsome little beast, and my last furtick of the trip.
Bird surveys and habitat assessments occupied the rest of our time. Highlights included a couple of half hour surveys of the big billabong on site, some close encounters with Spinifexbirds, seeing TaTa Lizard waving for the first time and harvesting solid year ticks like Little Eagle and Black-breasted Buzzard. Seeing Purple-necked Rock Wallabies every day, some with pouch young (unbelievably cute), was also very cool. After we’d closed out everything on site, we wrapped up the trip together back at the dam – Sarah and I had a swim to cool off and then we all sat around and had a good old chinwag as the sun went down. I’ll say again – I’m very privileged to be able to do this kind of stuff for a job! Thanks to the coven for a great trip and thanks heaps to Jess for manning the trenches at home while I was away 🙂
